Suspicion
by silent-phoenix4
Summary: Serena and Darien have just gotten married, but what happens when Serena has started to have horrible nightmares and Darien has to leave for a few weeks?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- This is my first sailor moon fan fiction, so please feel free to tell me how I'm doing. I started this story a while ago and never got around to posting it. Please review and I accept constructive criticism and anything to that nature. Enjoy!**

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Running and running, it felt like it was taking forever to run through the small town house and through the front door.

It seemed everything was silent except of the rapid pounding of blood in her ears and the footsteps pounding heavily on the hard wood floor behind her.

Her senses seemed dulled, it felt like she was running through thick fog, sweat beaded and ran down her face.

Suddenly rounding a tight corner Serena stumbled and quickly caught herself before she fell to the floor. She hoped he didn't catch up to her too much, due to her little klutzy stumble.

A moment later her front door came into view, she was just down the hall from it and she almost let out a sigh of relief, but she felt a piece of her long blond hair being tugged on by something.

Frantically looking behind her, she saw him, his face was shadowed, he had almost caught her, in his hand was a piece of her long blond hair, she heard him laughing manically at her.

Swallowing her panic and her doubts about getting away she continued her trek to the door, which was only a couple scant feet away from her, it felt like a century when she actually reached the door.

Grasping the gold door knob she hurriedly undid the lock with clumsy and sweaty fingers.

Just as she had opened the front door, only a few inches and felt the soft night breeze brush against her sweating and panic stricken face, Serena felt heavy warm fingers gripping her arm tightly in an almost unbreakable grip.

With a very hard push from the man that was gripping her arm behind her, the door slammed shut and her freedom was gone, Serena felt like a trapped animal.

The man smirked down at her; he easily sensed her terror at being caught by him.

Serena felt disgusted with herself for getting caught this easily. With determination Serena quickly brought her knee up and instantly kneed him in the gut with all of her pent up adrenaline and strength.

With a grunt the man bent over in pain, his one arm holding his stomach, but surprisingly he was still gripping Serena's arm in a bruising grip. Serena realized this and tried to rip his grip from her arm, it didn't budge at all.

Recovering almost instantly the man hauled Serena up by her arm and looked at her with a murderous gaze. He raised his hand to slap her when she screamed the loudest she had ever screamed before and yelled out " Someone, help me, I need help now!"

Almost instantly Serena was dropped onto her knees on the hard wood floor. She didn't know what she did to make him drop her, but she was grateful anyway.

Everything seemed to be spiraling out of control, the room started to spin and she was getting dizzier and dizzier by the second, Serena suddenly closed her eyes and hoped that this would be all over soon.

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Shaking, that's all Serena felt, just someone gently shaking her. Serena felt tired and scared; she slowly opened her eyes and was blinded by the very bright sun streaming through the open window.

_Where Am I? Serena thought._

"Serena, wake up."

Serena recognized the voice instantly and relief flooded her features, she realized that she was at her home, and in her bedroom she shared with her husband, Darien.

Yawning and stretching lazily, Serena didn't want Darien to know that her reoccurring nightmare had happened again, so she tried to act like nothing happened in her dreams last night. She didn't want Darien to worry about her, she knew he would worry if he found out she had the nightmare again.

Serena jumped from the bed with determination and instantly started pulling on her clothes for the day and just as she started to grab her tooth brush, Darien spoke to her.

Almost accusingly Darien turned and said to Serena, "You had another one of the nightmares again haven't you? I could tell you did, so please don't lie. Like usual in the middle of the night you started mumbling incoherently and started tossing and turning, and I couldn't even wake you up. I was really worried about you."

Letting out a tired sign Serena turned to look at her husband. " Yes. I did have another nightmare, but what do you want me to do about them? It's the same man every single time, I can never see his face, it's in shadows."

" I really don't know, but if they continue anymore often then they already do, we are going to do something about it."

Darien walked over to Serena and placed his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder and inhaling the smell of her hair, Serena put her arms around Darien and just took comfort in knowing that he was real and that he loved her and that she loved him.

After a few seconds Darien started to feel Serena shake and he knew she was crying. Gently he took them over to the bed and sat them on it while he was comforting her.

Darien knew that Serena was going through hard times. With all of her closest friends, Amy, Lita, Raye and Mina leaving for collage and along with the strange nightmares plaguing her almost every night, he knew Serena had a lot of stress. Darien just let her cry all of her stress and fear out onto him.

Approximately ten minutes later Serena stopped crying and was trying to catch her breath.

_Darien must think I' m a cry baby again after all of these years, I should be stronger than this and stop whining about little things._

"Okay, I'm good now Darien, thank you for that." Serena said while grabbing some tissues off of the nightstand next to the bed.

" Serena, it's fine, you're going through a lot of stress right now, and it's okay to cry once and a while."

Holding her tongue, Serena decided to just agree with Darien.

"Yeah, your right, why don't we go downstairs and have breakfast, since it is roughly 10:30 in the morning."

_Yeah, it's not alright Darien. Serena thought._

With that Serena left without another word, leaving Darien standing there looking like he wanted to say more to her.

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**A/N- Well this is it for my first chapter. I will try to update as soon as possible. Hopefully there wasn't a lot of errors or mistakes or anything like that. Pease review on how the chapter was, Thank you )**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer- I ****do not**** own Sailor Moon, ****Naoko Takeuchi does though.**

**A/N- Okay, well here is the second chapter, I hope it's good and it is still interesting to read and find out what will happen. Please review and tell me what you think, thank you!**

Quickly waking down the hard wood stairs of her little town house, Serena instantly headed straight to the kitchen.

Grabbing some bread off the counter for the toast and then picking up the eggs out of the refrigerator, Serena went to work on making breakfast.

_Well this is about the only type of food I can manage to make without ruining or burning it. Serena thought dryly._

After Serena placed the bread in the toaster, she walked over to her TV and turned it on to the news channel, like she did almost every morning.

Walking back over to the breakfast she was currently making, Serena absently listened to the news as she was cooking and she heard fragments of sentences like, Murder, USA, Killings, 12 murders and unknown suspects.

Interested now Serena turned her full attention back to the TV, which was showing a newscaster standing right outside of a brick house with what looked like police and detectives swarming it, Serena could also see the house was surrounded by yellow caution tap.

Serena heard the newscaster talking again about the murders, " Today there has been yet another murder, since last month there has been a total of twelve murders, today is the twelfth. Police still don't know exactly who is doing this ghastly crime, but they intend to find out soon, police think all of the murders are all connected. We currently don't know where the murderer is or murderers, but if you have any information please contact us immediately ."

_Hm, I wonder how one person or even more than one could get away with that many murders, but… I wonder if any of this is connected with any new enemies from other planets, it has been a long time since we were disrupted with anything, no, more like it has been years since we were bothered at all._

Serena snapped out of her musings when she suddenly smelled something burning.

_The Breakfast! Exclaimed Serena silently._

Just then she heard Darien next to her pulling the now burnt toast out of the toaster.

_Darien is always there to save me. Serena thought_

Cursing Serena helped Darien clean up the mess and went back to cooking again, she was just waiting for Darien to make some smart aleck remark about her cooking.

" What were you thinking about, you haven't burnt anything for a while, I am surprised." Darien teased.

Serena replied with a teasing sarcastic remark, " Well I don't see you cooking, do I?"

Darien just laughed in response.

" Okay, I am serious now, I have to tell you about something I just watched on TV."

" Go on, I am listening."

" Have you heard about the string of murders that has been linked together? The USA has some leads, they think it might be one person or a gang causing the murders. The police haven't figured it out yet, I am starting to get worried that we might have a new enemy on our hands, I don't think I can handle another enemy now."

" No I haven't, but I am watching the news story right now, it seems weird that they haven't caught the culprit now, did you stop and think that your nightmares might be somehow linked to what is happening now, I mean Raye used to have nightmares or premonitions about the worlds destruction, maybe that's what your experiencing, probably not world destruction though."

" I really don't know, I hope it is just a horrible reoccurring nightmare and defiantly not a premonition, that would be horrible to go through my nightmare in real life and even worse if is was somehow connected with these murders."

"Yeah, I know what your talking about."

"Well lets eat our breakfast before it gets colder than it already is."

Serena set the table and laid out the food for her and Darien, they ate mostly in peaceful silence with only a few word passing between them.

After breakfast Darien went upstairs to take a shower and as Darien was taking a shower Serena started cleaning up the plates from breakfast and began to put together Darien's lunch, he was about to go to work in about thirty minutes.

After completing what she wanted to do, Serena went over to the couch just outside of the kitchen and sat, just waiting for Darien to get out of the shower.

Sighing, Serena felt sleepy, even after having ten hours of sleep the previous night, she felt like she could sleep the rest of the day away on the couch.

_No! I can't go to sleep now, I don't want a nightmare and I need to say goodbye to Darien before he leaves for work._

In thinking about Darien's job Serena thought about when he first started to peruse it.

_**Flashback: Two Years Ago**_

" _You know, Serena. I need a job soon, there has been no enemy sightings for the past couple years and we are twenty years old now, so I was thinking to finish up my collage education, I want to become a crime investigator. You know I will be good at it because I could always sense when you were in danger and I just want to help people."_

"_Yeah your right Darien, we both need jobs."_

" _No, I didn't mean you needed a job, why don't you just become a writer or something to that degree, you always liked to read comics."_

_Serena could hear Darien holding his laughter in at that remark._

"_You know I could always try it out." Serena said mischievously._

" _But I will not make a lot of money, more like a few pennies. I will think of it as something I always wanted to try and getting paid a little bit of money, or more like a few pennies will make it a touch better, and you are just a liar about me starting to write. You know I would never be able to."_

" _Yeah, I know. But you could use the "few pennies" that you are going to make and use it to buy all of your clothes and things you spend all of my saved up money on." Darien said teasingly, he was holding his laughter in again._

" _Fine then, I better start writing all of my ideas down soon, if I ever want to buy anything" Serena said laughing._

_**End Flashback**_

Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs, Serena came out of her memories and quickly gathered together the things Darien needed to take to work with him.

_I guess I never did get a job._

Meeting Darien at the front door Serena smiled up at him and gently kissed him on the lips.

When they pulled apart Serena earnestly looked at him and said with Sincerely, "Be careful, okay?" Serena asked.

" You know I will, I will see you tonight when I get back home."

"Yes, I will see you when you get home, bye."

"Bye"

Serena watched from the door as Darien got into their car, pulled out of the driveway and drove off to work.

**Well that's it for the second chapter, I hope you like it. Please review and tell me how I'm doing. The next chapter should be out a little later, a few days. Thank you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer- I do not own Sailor moon, Naoko Takeuchi does though.**

**Okay this is my third chapter, and I don't know what anyone thinks about my story. I haven't had that much feedback. Anyway, hopefully I didn't make many mistakes in this chapter, please review. Thank you.**

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As Darien was driving away from his home, he turned to catch a last glimpse of Serena as he left the house for work, She was waving goodbye to him, he raised his hand to wave back but she had just then decided to turned away. Dropping his hand Darien was disappointed that Serena had turned away and played with the idea of going back home and saying goodbye to Serena again, ignoring that feeling he started the fifteen minuet excursion to work.

While driving to work Darien's mind was preoccupied, not on the road, but on just about everything else, from Serena to work and even to the murders.

Saying goodbye to Serena for the rest of the day was always one of the worst parts of Darien's day, but he would see her when he got home, that's what he always told himself.

_But what if something happens to me while I'm at work? What would Serena do? What if something happens to her while I'm at work, I would hate myself._

_She told me that when I go to work every night, she constantly worries about me. She said she would rather be poor and have me not work at all and have me safe with her than have me risk my life on a job. _

_No, I'm just being stupid thinking about this, I need to stop thinking about the words, what if._

Darien also liked to provide for Serena, he always felt some pride in knowing that he was providing money and security to Serena and himself, that's the main reason he really goes to work.

He never thought anything in his life would turn out as good as it did. But some nagging voice in his head reminded him of his doubts.

_Maybe the good times won't last, its about time for something bad to happen again, nothing has happened in a while._

Again dismissing his other thoughts of something going wrong he next turned his thoughts to the murders in the USA, he felt a bout of anxiety and that something colossal was going to happen in the very near future.

_I don't think that the murders taking place at the moment are new enemies or enemies with any sort of power. I just think they are a smart gang or a group of people who like to murder. Though the murders for some reason always take place near states with plenty of water or ocean, they all seemed connected. _

Darien's silent muse stopped when cars started honking behind him, looking up to his rearview mirror he noticed that the previous red light had turned green. Quickly pushing the gas pedal he sped forward trying to lose the angry people behind him.

Some minutes later Darien was back to driving silently, he was about a few blocks from the police station.

While driving towards his work building he noticed huge gray billows of smoke rising up and into the sky.

_A bad omen. Darien thought_

Darien also noticed fire trucks quickly rolling by him speeding and blaring their alarms, alerting people that something was wrong, trying to get to whatever was burning.

Some moments later forgetting about the fire trucks, like most people do, Darien turned his concentration back to the road as he turned the last corner to get to the police station where he worked.

Looking down at his watch it indicated that he was right on time.

When Darien looked up from his watch he immediately noticed the smoke and fire he had previously forgotten about, it was coming from his work building.

Shocked Darien pushed down the gas pedal, hard, he covered the few feet of pavement that lead to the employee entrance gate where he usually parked his car.

Turning into the parking lot, Darien gazed at the burning remains of the police station he had worked at for the past two years with surprised awe.

The police station was almost in total destruction, he didn't even recognize anything, he had to strain his eyes to actually see the remains of the station, for smoke was blanketing it from his view.

Darien then quickly got out of his car, locked it, and mentally prepared himself for what he was about to hear from his peers.

Jogging without delay to where he could see the most people standing, he rushed over to his best buddy, which is Dan.

Outwardly Darien didn't express any visible emotion, but inwardly he expressed relief that his best buddy and partner on the job was alive and he also inwardly felt chaos and curiosity as to what had transpired.

As Darien approached the circle of men he heard hushed whispering, and when he came even closer the men finally noticed him and the whispering started dying down.

Everyone was gathered around in a circle, he instantly recognized everyone else there, they all worked with him, Darien felt relief that they were all alright, but he was unhappy that they all had stopped talking when he arrived. He felt like he was the only one who didn't know a big secret.

Making his way into the circle he turned to his fellow employees and pointed at the burning building and asked," Hey, what happened here, why is our building burning?"

Darien knew he would hate the answer to that question.

" We have evidence that proves someone outside of the building started the fire, not an accident. We are already getting lab reports back on some of the buildings remains, it was thought to be started by a liquid fire starter, like kerosene."

" Damn, any leads as to who might have caused the fire and why."

Darien's friend, Dan, answered the question.

" Surprisingly we do have a lead on who might have caused the fire, one and only one lead."

Curious now, Darien looked at Dan and expected him to explain more, when he didn't say anything he asked, " What is the lead then?" Grudgingly Dan replied.

" We have probable cause that one of our men, Bryant, who elected to help American investigators on the crime scenes, went to far into the new murder case and almost found out who the murderers were and why they were murdering people."

Dan looked to the ground saddened suddenly and so did all of the other men standing with them.

" Bryant was murdered, and the reason I think our station was destroyed was because Bryant had sent us some extremely valuable information about the murderers while he was in the states, the information was impossible to take from our computers and delete so they wrecked our computers and police station, now we have nothing."

Darien looked around the circle of employees and he knew that Dan was right, Bryant was gone.

Darien had always liked Bryant, he remembered that Bryant had just finished his final training a few weeks ago, and was excited about going to work over in the USA for a while, he remembered Bryant as being a very happy and cheerful guy, he was also very intelligent.

" I can't seem to believe that Bryant is gone." Muttered Darien to the other men.

Every man standing with Darien muttered some sort of a sad agreement.

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**That's it for my third chapter, I hope you liked it. Now, this time it might take a few days to write another chapter, but who knows. Please tell me what you think in the form of a review or whatever else. Thank you!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer-Naoko Takeuchi owns Sailor Moon, not me.**

**A/N- This is the new chapter, I hope you like it!**

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Pulling into his driveway in the early morning hours, Darien felt exhausted. After spending countless hours at work sorting out all of the complications that arose due to the police building burning, the only thing on Darien's mind was heading straight to bed once he got inside.

Getting out of his car Darien headed for the front door of his house and when he looked up he noticed that all of the lights were off inside of the house.

_Good. At least Serena didn't stay up all night waiting for me to get home like she usually does, I hope she didn't worry about me too much since I got home considerably later than usual. _To say the very least Darien was relieved that Serena might possibly be sleeping.

Unlocking the front door Darien stepped into the pitch black house, instantly heading for the familar outline of the staircase through the dark hallway so he could go straight to bed.

Walking up the staircase in darkness, Darien noticed for the first time how every step he took would make the steps produce a horrible creaking noise, grimacing Darien hoped that all of the noise he was making wouldn't wake up Serena.

Finally with what seemed like forever Darien reached the bedroom door and gently pushed it open, praying that door wouldn't make a loud creaking sound like the steps did.

What greeted Darien was a dimly lit silhouette standing by the bedroom window, Darien felt panic that maybe someone had broken in and had hurt Serena while he was gone. His panic came to an abrupt halt when the figure spoke to him.

"Darien I have been waiting for you for hours, you were supposed to come home long ago, I was worried."

Darien barley recognized who had spoken, but he knew it was Serena. Serena sounded like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all. Watching the now unmistakable figure of Serena turning to face him, he saw her pale features lit by the moonlight, Serena looked older than usual and she looked like she would fall to the floor in exhaustion at any moment.

Darien felt very foolish that he didn't recognize Serena's figure and to think that someone had broken in while he was gone, after all the murders weren't happening anywhere near where they lived.

_But you know, what happened back at the station, thats near us? Someone you knew was murdered and now it isn't even safe around here. _Darien never thought about that, what if Serena wasn't safe at home?

" Are you going to answer me? Did something happen at work, for the past few months you haven't came home this late, I'm not stupid, something did happen."

Snapping out of his thoughts, Darien walked over to the bed and sat down, motioning for Serena to come over and sit next to him. Complying Serena sat next to Darien and waited intently for what he had to say.

" Well yeah something did happen at work." Darien stopped talking and just thought about what to say. He didn't want Serena to worry about him and get less sleep that usual.

" Okay, I got that the first time. Will you just tell me what happened. I have been waiting for you for hours worrying that something had happened at work and you get back and you will only tell me fragments of sentences." Serena was silently fuming, she wanted to know what happened, she also knew that she was snapping angrily at Darien, but she wanted him to say something.

Making up his mind Darien decided to wait and tell Serena what happened tomorrow morning.

" It's not that important that I need to tell you tonight, you should get some sleep and so should I. I will tell you everything tomorrow morning right when you wake up."

Sulkily, Serena laid back into the pillows and turned her back on Darien.

Sighing Darien wanted to ask Serena something else before she went back to sleep.

" Serena have you still been getting nightmares, you look tired and exhausted."

Serena turned her face to Darien and he saw in her face that he was correct in thinking that her lack of sleep and waiting for him was mostly because she was afraid of having more nightmares. Darien didn't say anything to Serena though.

Without saying a word Serena turned back around, satisfied that she didn't say anything to Darien. She wondered if he really knew that she was having more nightmares just like she knew something was wrong at his work.

_Darien would tell me right away if something was horribly wrong at work, right?_

* * *

Then next morning Serena woke up feeling very tired more so than yesterday. Ignoring her fatigue she jumped out of bed like nothing was wrong.

After stretching for a little bit Serena changed into her day clothes and crawled back into the still warm bed, waiting patiently for Darien to finally wake up.

Getting bored of waiting for Darien to wake up, Serena flicked on the TV to the news and weather channel. Serena was vaguely looking at the commercials playing, it was taking so long to get to the news and weather. Since she was half asleep Serena almost missed when the news finally came on.

Lifting her head up Serena looked at the main story on the news, she was shocked to find out that it was Darien's work place on TV!

Almost dropping the remote Serena went to wake Darien up to tell him about the destruction of his work place, just as she was about to touch him the news anchor said the date that this had happened. Serena looked over to her calendar quickly and saw that it had happened yesterday.

_No I have to have the wrong date, Darien wouldn't hold such important information from me, but it had to have happened yesterday! I can't believe he didn't tell me, why didn't he tell me? Why didn't I see this on TV yesterday also?_

Dropping her hand Serena was incredibly hurt and betrayed that Darien never told her that something this serious had happened. Thinking, Serena faintly remembered what Darien had said late last night, something had happened when he got to work, but he said it wasn't a big deal and that he would tell her in the morning.

Watching some more of the news about Darien's work place, Serena found out more information than what Darien would have ever told her. Or that's just what she kept telling herself.

_So the police suspect that the murderer or murderers from the U.S came over to one of Japans police stations because one man found out too much information about the murders and ended up sending it to the police station that Darien works at. Then they proceeded to murder the man who found out so much evidence, he had to have worked with Darien. Then after that they must have proceeded to burn the police station. Wow whoever did this must be extremely strong, I'm starting to think that this isn't a normal person and that they aren't working alone._

Finally looking over to Darien, Serena was surprised to find that he was awake. He had a worried look on his face and when he looked at her face he looked ashamed that she found out the whole truth from the TV, not him.

Darien felt stupid for not thinking that this would be on the TV, Serena could have even seen it last night, he should have know that it would be on in the morning and that Serena watches TV every single morning when she gets up.

" Well so much for 'nothing too important happened at work last night'."

" I know, I should have told you before I went to sleep, but I didn't want you to worry and not get any sleep last night. I'm worried about you, you're not getting a lot of sleep. I think it is about the nightmares, right?"

" I was asleep before you came home, I did have another nightmare though, it is still the same one. Still that's not what I'm mad about. I'm mad about how you lied to me and didn't tell me what happened, I would have liked to know even if it did cost me some more sleep."

" I promise I won't keep anything like this from you again, okay? I wasn't thinking straight last night because I had little to no sleep and I was almost at work more than a half a day."

_I just hope nothing like this happens again. _Darien hoped what he thought was true.

" Fine, but just know that I have never kept anything really important from you."

_I actually don't remember if I did or didn't keep anything from him, oh well if he remembers something then he remembers, it must have happened a while ago if I don't remember. Darien is right, he was tired and had worked a long time last night. I will let him slide once I guess, I'm also not thinking straight from my lack of sleep also._

Serena laughed out loud from her thoughts.

Darien gave her a funny look. _One minute Serena's mad at me another minute she's happy and laughing. I don't know about her sometimes._

" Serena I might get called into work today or tomorrow. I think maybe the meeting will take place in a makeshift police station or something to that nature, since our old one is in a mess. There is going to be a meeting on what is going to be done about the murders and the fire and everyone will be assigned a new duty or a temporary one."

Choosing her words carefully Serena thought about how to ask Darien on what they are going to do on the threat against everyone.

" Darien do you think it will be like old times with me, you and the other Sailor Senshi, do you think that this is a serious threat and that we will have to actually do something about it together."

" I don't know, but we will find out in time, we haven't done anything like go after an enemy and you and the others haven't transformed in a while or more like years, we will see what happens."

" Well I have been thinking about that type of stuff for a while and I hope that the situations arising won't escalate to something big, but I think it might."

" You never know Serena, it could turn out to be nothing more than a single crazy man on the loose."

Abruptly interrupting their conversation was three hard knocks coming from what seemed like their front door.

Darien and Serena got up quickly and looked out the window to see a car in their driveway, but they both didn't recognize the car at all.

Quickly dressing Darien yelled down to whoever was at the door that he was coming.

Briskly walking down the staircase Darien walked to the front door and looked through the peephole on the middle of door.

Darien looked at the person waiting outside, but they were facing away from the door so he couldn't distinguish if it was a man or a woman.

_They look harmless to me, but I still don't know who they are, I should be cautious, it also looks like they are holding something like a box._

Deftly unlocking the various locks that Serena insisted they have on the door for maximum protection, Darien then slowly pushed open the door and kept his body half inside the house and half outside the house just incase it was someone dangerous.

The door opened to reveal that is was…

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**A/N- I hope the chapter was good and that the cliffhanger wasn't too stupid haha but please review and tell me if it was a good chapter. Thanks. Thanks also to my reviewers.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, ****Naoko Takeuchi** **does.**

**A/N- So here is the next chapter, I hope the conclusion to the cliffhanger isn't too stupid. I think this chapter is okay though. Thanks for reading and reviewing.**

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Darien felt his heart beating faster than normal and his adrenaline working on over drive as he started to slowly push the door open.

While slowly pushing open the door, Darien was aware that Serena was right behind him. He heard Serena hold her breath and he knew she was nervously twisting her hands together in anticipation as to who was really outside of the door.

Darien wished that he knew what Serena's thoughts were right now, so he could have another opinion on this.

_What if we are just over reacting and the person at the door is really just a regular person. I think that we may be just getting ourselves overly nervous thinking that a enemy is going to just show up at our door in broad daylight where everyone could see him. thought Serena._

Hearing Serena become calm, Darien stopped his foolishness and just pushed the door open the rest of the way and instantly he was greeted with a man about 40 years old, he was very short and dressed in some sort of a uniform. He was also carrying a medium sized package under his left arm.

_What? I thought that this was going to be an enemy. But why is he holding a package or why isn't he attacking, he is Probably not an enemy. I didn't order anything and neither did Serena, at least to the best of my knowledge she didn't. I'm just overreacting now because all of the murders and all of the problems at the police station. They have filled my head with the worst case scenario. Thought Darien._

Feeling ridiculous for getting all worked up and nervous over opening the door, Darien visibly relaxed.

After waiting just a few seconds Darien felt like it had taken forever when the man finally spoke.

Darien was still interested as to why this man was here and why he was carrying some sort of package with him.

" Hello, I'm the local delivery man and I need you to sign a few papers for me so you can receive your package, it will only take a few minutes and then everything will be finished."

Darien and Serena were puzzled, looking over at each other they silently agreed that both of them haven't ordered anything in a while.

When Darien turned back around to look at the delivery man he was faced with a clipboard in his face. Hastily grabbing the clipboard and pen from the man Darien looked at the paper work that he had to fill out.

_I can't fill this out, I didn't order anything, this isn't my package. _Darien felt very frustrated with himself and the delivery man because he must have the wrong house and address.

" Excuse me sir, but I don't think this belongs to me, my wife and I never ordered anything that needed to come by delivery."

Darien watched the delivery man become confused. The man grabbed the package back from Darien and looked at the address on the box and then looked at the address on the mailbox. The delivery man then nodded and handed the box back to Darien with confidence.

" Sir, this is you package, it's address matches the one on you mailbox and the delivery system that I work with rarely has a mess up."

Darien sighed and thought_, I can tell this is going to take awhile._

" Okay I will take the package, but who is it from? I see no other address other than mine on the package."

The delivery man didn't look surprised and said to Darien, " That just means that they either sent it from... say a vacation spot or they had a lot of money and didn't want the address put on the package. Well please sign this quickly, I'm running late now"

Signing the paper work quickly Darien handed it back to the delivery man.

" Have a nice day, sir."

But before Darien could speak again to the small man he was already jogging down the driveway to his delivery truck, but Darien couldn't see the truck parked anywhere.

Just as the man was out of site and Darien and Serena were about to close the door and walk into the house another car pulled into the driveway.

_I can't believe this, hardly anyone ever visits and now today we get more people coming over than ever. At least I know the car this time and I don't have to act all nervous and scared like I did before. _

" Darien, you should know who this is, right? Even I do, it's one of you colleagues, the one who always gives you the latest information about your work and occasionally visits. I'll take this package inside and we will look at it when your done talking."

Darien agreed with Serena and as Serena was walking away Darien stood at the door waiting for his colleague and friend to walk up to the front door and greet him.

" Hey Darien, long time no see." Said Dan with a friendly smile on his face.

" Hey Dan. Yeah, long time no see."

Darien knew Dan was joking with him because he had just seen him barely a day ago. They had to both stay at work until the early hours in the morning.

"I know this isn't just a social call Dan, or you would have called ahead of time. So is something wrong?" Darien had a very grim look on his face when he said that, he expected that something bad had happened again.

" Wow Darien your uptight, it's not like you. Just because I stopped by doesn't mean something is wrong, relax. I just decided to stop by because I was just simply passing by your house on the way to the grocery store. I do have something to tell you though."

" Well I guess that's a relief, and I have been uptight. Anyway I'm hoping that what you have to tell me isn't too serious."

Dan looked at Darien with a very annoyed expression.

" You never listen to me at all Darien, I told you nothing was wrong. Or at least I think I did. I will end your misery now with saying that the only reason I came here was to tell you that we have a meeting tonight at some sort of city hall around this city. Actually I think the city hall is approximately five minute away from you."

" Okay, that's good it's so close, I know where is it. What time do I have to be there?"

Darien wished that the meeting would be later at night so he could spend some time with Serena during the day and not at night.

"The meeting will start promptly at 8:00pm, about nine hours from now."

"Okay that's good, thanks for stopping by Dan. I will see you tonight, bye."

Darien watched as Dan waved to him and walked back into his car and pulled out of the driveway.

About to turn around and walk back into the house Darien bumped into Serena who he hadn't noticed before, she was tugging on his shirt sleeve frantically.

"You have to see this, I opened the box that we just got and you have to see what is inside it. I have been waiting for you to finish talking for what seemed like forever."

" Serena I told you we would look at the package together, what if something like a bomb or an explosive was inside it?"

" Come on Darien do you actually hear what your saying, a bomb? Your becoming very paranoid in your old age. Besides you knew anyway that I would open the package, I was too curious."

" Okay I will try and loosen up, but come on, my old age? I'm not that old."

"Yeah whatever. Wait! Darien your distracting me, you have to look at what I found inside the package. I think you will find it interesting."

_This is going to be a extremely long day. _Thought Darien as he was being hurriedly tugged along by his shirt sleeve that the excited Serena was holding.

Serena led Darien into the kitchen where the package sat, it was open and some of its contents were in disarray on the kitchen table where Serena sat them. The box looked like it held mostly papers.

Gently pulling his now wrinkled shirt sleeve from Serena's death grip, Darien walked over to the box and looked down into it, he was greeted with various written documents and plenty of photographs of people and buildings that he had never seen.

Interested in the package now, Darien picked up some pictures of buildings that he didn't recognize at all.

He looked to the back of the photograph for a description or date and found one. It said, U.S warehouse. Darien then looked at the date which was messily scrawled right under the description. He was surprised to find that it was taken barely one month ago.

" Darien what is this stuff, do you have any clue as to who sent it to you? Also why would they send it to you"

" I don't have a clue Serena, we don't even know if it was sent to me, but there is plenty of hand written documents all dated and they all have pictures attacked to them. I'm sure we can find out what they all mean though.

Shuffling through the contents of the package again Darien and Serena found handwritten documents that would equal to about a 150 page notebook.

The photographs were all places Serena and Darien have never been to or seen. It was obviously taken out of the country, the U.S more like it.

Searching some more through the package Darien found a small package still wrapped up, the shape was about the size of a postcard, just thicker and weighed a lot more.

Carefully tearing the small package open Darien was met with a couple pages of notes rubber banded together with some photographs.

When Darien took the note off of the photographs he was greeted with a horrible sight, right behind him Serena let out a gasp as she looked at what Darien was holding. And Darien almost dropped the photographs because the site had startled him so much.

Looking down again at the horrid site even Darien wanted to throw up. Then in a small voice that Darien had to strain to hear Serena said, " Darien, really. Who would send us this horrible stuff?"

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**A/N- This is the end of the chapter, I know I stopped at another cliffhanger. But this is one of the last cliffhangers for a while, I promise. So what did they find…… If I continued I think the chapter would be doubled in size. I will update soon, so you won't have to wait long. Please review and tell me how the chapter was. Thanks.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi** **does.**

**A/N- Okay this is the next chapter! Thanks for reading and reviewing, its appreciated.**

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Glancing down to the photographs in his hand Darien said nothing to Serena's previous question, he simply had too many questions on his own mind that he needed to be answered.

Besides if he answered her question chances are he wouldn't give the correct answer.

Serena was alarmed at the photographs in Darien's hand. Serena had seen many gruesome pictures of murders in her life and even seen some up close, but nothing to this degree.

There was several shots of various people of all ages and gender laying on a blood covered floor with their bodies entirely mutilated, almost beyond recognition.

It was obvious to anyone that the murders were all connected. Some of the bodies also had missing body parts and eyes. The most damage was done to the bodies faces.

Thinking again about the pictures, Serena felt sorrow for the people who were brutally murdered and the awful pain that they must have endured before they died.

What really got Serena angry was that there were little children besides what seemed like there now distorted and dead parents.

The murderer had destroyed families and Serena wanted to find out why and how someone could be that cruel hearted, though she had always felt sadness about any type of crime.

Turning to Darien after a few minutes of silence Serena waited for Darien to turn and face her, when he did she waited a few seconds more to gather up her thoughts while she was staring him straight in the eye.

Serena wanted to ask Darien some very important questions that he might not even know.

" What are you going to do about the package that was delivered to us? Are you going to bring the pictures and the other evidence of the murders to work with you tonight?"

Serena really wanted Darien to tell her no and say to her that he is going to keep the package with the evidence of the murders and figure out something from there. She desperately wanted to go after the murderer like old times with Darien and the Sailor Senshi.

Serena wanted to get back at the murderer since he destroyed lives of young and old people that were probably innocent. Serena was sure that the people that were killed didn't expect to be dead now and she was sure that their family didn't expect that either.

In the end Serena decided that whatever Darien wanted to do she would follow him and just let him choose for the both of them, her emotions were too involved in the moment.

Serena had made up her mind not question his decision because Darien would most likely know what to do and he would pick the right decision anyway, Serena had complete faith in him.

With a look that seemed like contemplation Darien answered Serena carefully, " Well since we don't know if the package sent to us was sent from the actual murderer or even Bryant, I really don't know what to do. I don't want to give this to the police station because if these murder photographs are connected to the current murders then the police group runs the risk of losing more members and possibly another ruined station."

Pulling out a kitchen chair for Serena and another for himself Darien proceeded to sit down and go through the package yet another time to look for more connections or clues.

Ignoring the actually murder photos Darien leafed through the seemingly endless notebook pages looking for a important line to catch his eye.

Only a few minutes later something did catch his eye, these were indeed hand written papers from his former colleague Bryant. The papers contained mostly nothing interesting, but only in the beginning.

Continuing to skim read through paragraphs Darien noticed a rather long entry that was very messy and crumpled, it was also stapled together while no other entry was stapled.

Darien just knew that whatever these papers in his hand had to say, it must be very important.

Sitting more comfortably in his chair Darien started reading the papers that Bryant had written, they were dated hardly a few weeks ago.

_Darien_

_I have only a few minutes to get my thoughts and evidence out to you. They are coming to get me right as I write this letter and they might even be watching me now, as you knew I was in the U.S searching the new murder cases. _

_I hit something huge, I was stationed in a back alley in a undercover car and I had fallen asleep, I was supposed to be done with my shift hours ago. _

_When I woke up I heard yelling and a group of what looked like all men, they were basically hauling a struggling man and a women with them. _

_I carefully got out of my car and followed the men into a empty warehouse, I then took out my camera and took pictures of the building which you should have already seen. _

_I then walked around the building that had been previously locked up in the daylight and pulled open a door, it opened. _

_What surprised me the most was that right there the murders ( I surmised that they were the murderers at the time and I was right.) had their victims hanging up by chains, they were horribly mutilated, some of the worst cases I have ever laid eyes on. I've enclosed photos of the murders also._

_I rushed back to my undercover car and placed the camera in there, I then went into the building with my gun out in the open, I was almost instantly greeted with a very tall male. He grabbed me by the arm and I shot him, he didn't die! I even shot him in the heart, it was like some horror movie, you have to believe me!_

_To say the least they captured me and beat me up a bit, not so bad thankfully, I fear that my time of dying is soon. _

_I escaped for sometime though, they underestimated me, do you remember that I'm double jointed and very skinny. I simply slipped through the cuffs and the ropes. _

_They were a weird group of murderers, always calling me human or a vile human, saying that I could never escape. I though aren't they human too?_

_Now here I' am basically waiting my death, they are after me and hopefully this will get to you, I don't think the murders will leave a trace of me._

_I'm leaving this package where the condo owner said he will deliver anything if I ever needed something mailed._

_I have also gained more information before hand, it is also inside the package and is very valuable information._

_If you get this then don't show this to our police force, I always knew that you would be able to finish this murder case off, I knew you had some sort of special ability for cases such as these when trained me. _

_These men are dangerous and they will kill everyone on the police force if they have to. There is also more murders than reported, it is unbelievable._

_Bryant_

When Darien finally finished reading the letter he heard Serena saying how she was going to help him solve the murders and avenge all of the dead victims.

Darien had to think for a moment as to what Serena was talking about because he hadn't realized he had read the whole letter out loud.

" Darien all I know is that we are going to solve this, with our without the Sailor Senshi."

Darien simply didn't know why Serena was getting so angry over this, he was sad and also angry, but not as bad as Serena was.

_Serena must have connected this murder case to her life somehow. Darien mused. She must also be getting bored because I know for a fact that this is going to be a whole new enemy to face and judging by the report from Bryant they absolutely do have power, Bryant never did exaggerate anything._

" Serena I agree with you, we will somehow solve the crime. We will really need help though, preferably from the Sailor Senshi. The new enemies sound strong, like always."

"Yeah." Serena Agreed.

Glancing at the clock behind him, Darien was surprised at how fast the time had gone by.

Darien felt very guilty that he was going to have to leave Serena behind yet another night, he hoped that she would finally get some sleep.

"Serena I hate to leave you alone right now, but time has seemed to disappear and I have to get ready for work, in fact I only have a few minutes right now."

" It's fine to leave me alone, how about I go through the package again and try to place the notebook pages in some semblance of order and when you come back home we will discuss what I found."

Nodding his head yes to her question, Darien wrapped Serena in his arms and told her, " I hope you know everything is going to work out perfectly, just like it always has in the past. And that we will also get the Sailor Senshi back together and figure something out with them."

Reluctantly letting go of Serena, Darien waved goodbye to her and left for work.

**A/N- How was the new chapter? I hope it was interesting. The next chapter will definitely be longer than this one. Thanks for reading.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi** **does.**

**A/N- Thank you for reading and reviewing, it is appreciated. **

Opening up the City Hall doors to the makeshift meeting, Darien had Previously made up his mind that he would not tell the police force he had found very valuable evidence about the murders.

Walking across the room and over to all of the familiar faces of his colleagues Darien sat next to Dan, but said nothing.

Waiting for the meeting to start Darien just sat in his chair feeling very guilty about keeping evidence from everyone, especially when he kept hearing whispers of conversation about what's going to happen.

Finally after a short wait a loud cough was heard and the Deputy walked up on a small podium that had a microphone. After instantly grabbing everyone's attention the Deputy started his short speech.

"Everyone knows why we are here tonight, this meeting was conducted because of the destruction of our police building and also the Sheriff can't be here due to other matters, he apologizes." Various head nods were seen in the small gathering of people and some muttered yeses.

Continuing his speech the Deputy started to state what was to be done about security and safety.

" We want to protect the people of the city, but we also want to go about it the safe way. We have already started the construction of a new police station site and it will have the best of the best security, with top notch technology. We care about everyone of you and we won't make another security mistake" Again everyone agreed to what the Deputy was saying.

" Now about the murder case, it has traveled over to us because one of our own was killed in action, but we don't have any leads since everything was destroyed in the fire. A new plan of action is going to take place now, we aren't going to get many people involved like before. Only the best of our team will be put on a squad and they will collect evidence."

The Deputy looked around the room for more agreement but he didn't see anything, the Deputy just saw grim and worried faces.

The Deputy had an idea as to why everyone was so silent_. These men don't want to get involved, I can sense it, but someone has to do it._

Clearing his thoughts and saving the decision as to who is going to participate in the collection of evidence for later the Deputy waited a few seconds until he had everyone's attention again and everyone was silent.

"I know this is a very short meeting, but I need to know if anyone has any information they have been holding back from the police? It would be helpful for us to know."

Darien felt like he had been put on the spot, like everyone was looking at him, but in reality everyone was just staring straight ahead at the Deputy.

"No information? Okay, lets get this meeting finished. I only need to see a few men after this meeting and I will stop them on the way out. We won't have another meeting in about a month, the new police station will be up by then. Everyone will receive information someway. Again I know this was short but I need to speak to a few of you and I thought that everyone wanted to know the latest news, the meeting is over, thank you for coming"

Watching the Deputy get off the small podium Darien knew that he was one of the people that the Deputy wanted to talk to even before he saw him turn in his direction.

"Ah, Darien I need to see you in that room to your right, I will be there in a few minutes." Darien turned his head in the direction of the Deputy's out stretched finger, nodded his head and quickly got up and walked into the secluded room waiting for the Deputy to come in and talk to him.

Absently tapping his fingers on a table in the large room Darien though about what the Deputy might have to say to him.

_I have absolutely no clue as to why he would want to talk to me, I rarely even talk to him and he could not have figured out about the package that was delivered to me and I have done nothing wrong._

Hearing the door creak open Darien sat straight up in his chair and waited for the Deputy to sit down and talk to him.

Shutting the door and walking over to Darien the Deputy sat down and without missing a beat started talking to Darien.

" Now I know you have to know something more than the others, you always seem to know everything before the others."

Getting ready to lie Darien replied, " No of course not, I wouldn't know anything. Why would you think that?"

The Deputy seemed to believe Darien's lie, it looked like he felt foolish that he even asked Darien that question.

"Your right, why would you know? Anyway that was not the only thing that I had to ask you. Since you're an excellent policeman, investigator and bodyguard I need you to take up a task that isn't very interesting or challenging."

Sitting in silence Darien waited for him to continue, not knowing anything about what the Deputy was telling him. After a few more awkward seconds of silence he remembered that the Deputy always needed confirmation, he nodded his head.

"Now what I need you to do is starting tomorrow afternoon you are going to be a bodyguard or a protector of a family. It is the family of Bryant, consisting of his wife and two children. The wife wanted protection since her husband was murdered. I personally think that a bodyguard isn't needed, but hey, they are paying for it and so I will give them the best. What do you say, will you do it?"

Darien pondered the thought of being a bodyguard, but he thought about Serena and how she would be left alone. He also thought about how the extra money would help pay off some small debts. After weighing the ideas in his mind he made his decision.

" Yes I will do it, tell me how long I will be needed. I hope only a week or two, right? And how far away is the house from here?"

Pulling a paper out of his brief case, the Deputy stated that, " You will be needed for one to approximately two weeks and your going to stay at the families house that is about two hours away from here."

Thinking that that wasn't too bad of a deal Darien decided he would agree and protect Bryant's family, though Darien didn't think the family really needs him as a bodyguard. He also thought that the murderers aren't specifically after Bryant's family, but he didn't say anything.

" I will be starting tomorrow, correct? At what time should I be at the families house?"

"Yes tomorrow and you should be at the families house at about 4:00pm. Now I have to talk to the other men that I asked to stay behind after the meeting. Darien, I will see you at the Bryant family home tomorrow. Don't be late, Bye."

"See you tomorrow at 4:00pm."

Darien then walked out of the room and motioned for the people standing outside of the door to see the Deputy.

As Darien exited the building he started to think about what he would do with Serena home all alone.

Sighing Darien got into his car and drove home.

Once Darien got out of his car he jogged over to the front door and he unlocked it, as he stepped inside he saw Serena at the kitchen table reading all of the journal entries that were from Bryant.

_I have never seen her read so much. _Though Darien who was amused.

Breaking the silence, Serena started talking to Darien.

" You need to look at these entries, I really can't believe how smart this man was. He basically figured everything out. Did you know that there is actually plans of the enemies coming over here?"

Taking off his jacket and shoes Darien walked over to where Serena was basically covered in all of the papers.

"What! How would Bryant know that? Can I read the entry Serena?"

Serena then quickly handed Darien the paper and he started reading it to himself.

_I was around many other police officials while I was following the murder cases oversea, I heard from them that there has been more murders than reported and that the police don't know where the murderers will strike next. _

_The police don't want citizens to panic so that's why they kept it quiet. I also heard that the police actually caught one of the murderers, but he escaped, which is very rare. When the police interrogated him they heard him say that they are going to move all around the world, to many different places and murder people, for what reason I don't know._

_I think that telling the police about where they are going to murder people in the near future is very stupid, a little too stupid. But there is a possibility that they might come over to where you are and start murdering people, but why I really don't know and I want to know badly._

_I'm getting really far into this murder case and I don't know what will happen, I don't regret that I get to help out though. I'm going to write whenever I get important information, but now I'm done for today._

_Bryant_

"So the murderers could be over here right now, since this was hand written about one month ago. The station did get destroyed, it is possibly by these people."

" Yeah Darien, but to think that the police are hiding more murders from the people, that is really bad."

"Yeah, but before I forget I have to tell you something really important. I wouldn't want you mad at me if I forgot to tell you. I have to act as a bodyguard or protector for Bryant's family. They think that they are in danger, but I think that they aren't. I will be away for a week or two, and this job is completely safe."

" I guess, but there better be nothing going on that I don't know of, for example you really going off to look for the murderers by yourself."

" Serena I will be about two hours away from here. The only thing I ask of you is that you invite all of the Sailor Senshi over while I'm gone. Maybe you guys can figure something out and then we can all go and bust the murderers."

" Darien you know I will be fine, and I'm already two steps ahead of you. I invited the Sailor Senshi over already while you were gone, I haven't seen them in ages so I can't wait until they get here. I will just tell them to stay for a few more days now."

" Serena I think we should go to bed. It has been a long day, I will see you upstairs."

"I will be up in a few minutes also, I'm going to pack away all of the mess on the table."

Hearing Darien walk up the steps Serena hurriedly packed away all of the papers and photographs that were left on the table in a mess and stuck them in a kitchen cabinet, feeling very tired she also climbed up the stairs to go to bed.

Before Serena fell asleep she thought about how she was going to have a very hectic and busy few weeks ahead of her.

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**A/N- Thank you for reading, I hope this chapter was good.**


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi**__**does.**_

_**A/N- Thank you for reading and reviewing, feedback is appreciated. **_

Waking up to the morning sunlight shinning through their bedroom window Darien and Serena slowly got up and out of their warm bed.

The previous night Darien and Serena decided that their house was long overdue for some kind of cleaning and after all, the Sailor Senshi are due to arrive at their house anytime later in the day.

After finishing their quick breakfast and after finishing with washing the dishes Serena helped Darien pack his bags since he was going to be gone for a good week or two.

When everything was done on the main floor level Serena started walking upstairs so she could start cleaning.

After helping Darien pack most of his clothes and other things into a rather large green suitcase Serena headed over and into the bathroom and left Darien to pack the rest of his suitcase. Serena then grabbed all of the necessary cleaning supplies, then she started with dusting all of the furniture in every room.

Serena was idly dusting off the last piece of furniture in the guest bedroom when she glanced up at the clock on the wall, she was surprised at what the time said so she started putting all of the cleaning supplies away.

Hoping that Darien was done with his suitcase Serena called out to him." Darien have you seen the time? They are going to be here soon, I suggest that you get dressed into something presentable. Oh and I hope you have already finished packing your bags for your bodyguard duty because it is almost time for you to leave." Not waiting for Darien to answer, Serena walked back upstairs to get changed into clean clothes.

While upstairs Serena looked at the rather heavy and fully packed suitcase, she then walked into the great expanse of her closet, she had no idea what she was going to wear but making up her mind Serena picked out one of her favorite pink shirts and a knee length skirt. A few minutes later she heard the door bell chime a familiar song and Serena realized that her friends had finally arrived at her house. Feeling quite anxious Serena quickly finished up the last buttons on her light pink blouse, Serena then yelled for Darien to run upstairs and change into his good clothes.

Passing Darien on the way down to the front door Serena gave him a small nervous smile to see what he would do and she felt instantly better when he returned her gesture with an encouraging smile. With increased courage to face her friends after a while of not seeing them Serena took a deep breath and touched the door handle while thinking about her friends.

_Wow I haven't seen any of my friends for a good six months, more like I haven't seen them since I had my wedding with Darien. I doubt that anything is different between us, we've been through so much. And we weren't able to see each other because of other commitments and college._

Unlocking and opening the front door Serna was greeted with the familiar smiling faces of all her friends, that lasted a second though because all of her friends attacked her with hugs and them telling her how much they missed her. After what seemed like forever Serena reluctantly let go of her friends and faced them, noticing that her friends haven't changed in the least bit since she had last seen them. Serena sighed happily and gave her friends a truly happy smile, she also motioned for everyone to come inside.

" We should get inside and talk, everyone can leave their bags by the stairs, Darien will bring them up and set them in the guest bedrooms. I ordered some food for us to eat also."

Serena then made everyone walk inside of the house and when everyone was inside she shut the front door. Serena took her friends through the kitchen and into the adjoining room where they would all sit. Once in the room everyone sat down, the chairs and couch was all positioned to face each other.

" Wow, Serena you have a nice house, when did you get the money." Said Raye jokingly.

" I forgot you guys never got to see the house, I'm happy you like it. Thanks."

" So what have all you been doing for the past six months, has anything interesting happened?" The girls seemed to be thinking about the question, but by the look on all of their faces it clearly showed that nothing of importance had happened to any of them.

" Serena we were all actually wondering if anything had happened with you, the rest of us go to collage together so we can talk with each other when we want to, do you have anything interesting to tell us?"

Serena tried to answer Amy's innocent question truthfully, but in all honesty she wanted everything to be normal with them for a few more hours, maybe until after they had their food. Serena wished something or someone would change the topic until later, but no luck.

" Um, there are just a fe…" Serena's response was interrupted when Darien came downstairs with his suitcase in hand and a jacket.

" Hey everyone, it is nice to see you all again after some months."

Everyone then turned their gazes and attention to Darien and gave him a positive response. Serena felt relief that Darien was turning everyone's attention away from her for a little while. To Serena it felt like Darien felt her distress, but she knew better.

" I don't know if Serena got to telling you but there is a change of plans, I'm going over to some families house to be their bodyguard, hopefully I will get to talk to all of you later or may be in a week or two that's how long I will be there. Now I have to head off to the house since it is about a two hour drive from here, not too far I guess."

Serena was happy that Darien didn't tell everyone the details about why he was being hired as a body guard, she still wanted to wait until later to tell everyone everything.

" Why do you have to be a bodyguard, for who? Is it serious, or can't you tell us since it is classified or maybe you don't want to tell us? Is it something like that?" Mina said skeptically.Serena thought that Mina was way too curious, but after all it was Mina.

"This is going to disappoint you guys I guess, nothing interesting is going on, it isn't even that serious. The family that wants my service is just scared for their safety."

Everyone seemed to believe Darien, but he wasn't even lying anyway.

"It has been nice seeing everyone again and to see that everyone is doing fine, now I have to leave or I will be late."

Grabbing his bags from where he sat them, Darien started walking towards the front door so he could leave. He was stopped from opening the door when he felt a hand grab onto his outstretched hand. Darien knew it was Serena. Looking down he saw that Serena was on the brink of tears. Grabbing Serena's hand this time Darien took her outside so they could have some privacy.

" Darien, I want you to know that you still should be very careful even though everyone has told you that this bodyguard duty will be easy and that there is supposed to be absolutely no threat to you and the family you are with."

Darien looked down at Serena again and saw that she was holding back tears, he realized that this was the first time in a while that they will be separated for more than just a few days. Darien also felt very guilty that he was leaving Serena at home without him, the only thing that made him feel better was that all of her friends were there and that he could trust them to look after each other.

" We have been through this already, but I will assure you again that I will be very careful despite what everyone has said to me."

Serena looked convinced that he wouldn't do anything other than what they talked about, but it was hard to tell since she had her head turned away from him facing the driveway. Darien then gently lifted Serena's head up with his fingers and he kissed her with all that he was feeling at that moment, the kiss wasn't too long or too short. When they were done Darien just held Serena in his arms and kissed her forehead telling her that he will come back the same as he left

Still sad that Darien was leaving Serena nodded her head in agreement to what Darien said and told him goodbye. Standing in the driveway Serena waited until Darien left and drove away, she then walked back into the house and got ready to face her friends bombarding her with more questions about how she has been since they last seen her.

Shutting the door behind her Serena walked back into the room that contained her friends, Serena looked at all of there faces and noticed that they were all smiling at her, finally Lita spoke and told Serena all that she needed to know.

" Aw, that was so cute out there, you and Darien make a wonderful married couple."

That brought another smile to Serena's face, knowing that her friends were back to normal and messing with her.

" So the food should be arriving any minute, actually I think it is here right now."

Everyone walked towards the door and greeted the pizza man that held about three pizza's. Serena gave the man a tip and paid for the pizza. Back inside Serena set the kitchen table with plates and napkins and waited for everyone to sit down.

" Did you see that pizza guy? He was so good looking, wasn't he Lita?"

" He sure was, we should have talked to him."

Again her friends brought a smile to her face, whether it was there intention to or not, Serena was reminded of all the times that they shared together when they were younger. Serena was also very happy that nothing had changed between them in all the years that they knew each other.

" Okay guys I think it is time to eat, and stop talking about the pizza guy." Amy jokingly reprimanded the still boy crazy girls.

As they were eating their pizza the girls talked about their memories from middle school and high school and everything else that they could think about. Serena then remembered about Luna and Artemis.

" What ever happened to Luna and Artemis, the last thing I remember about them is that Luna was crying when I got married six months ago. I remember her telling me that she and Artemis was going to take a break and go somewhere."

" That's the last time that I have seen them also, though I remember that Artemis said they were going to still be near here."

Believing Mina, Serena and the girls went back to sharing their memories with each other.

**With Darien**

After driving for a total of two hours Darien finally started to arrive at the city where he was to meet up with the Bryant family. Passing a few houses here and there Darien came upon a little community of houses, it looked to be gated. Driving up to the gates he was stopped by security guards, he told him why he was there and it seemed that the family had already alerted the security about him in advance. After getting directions from the man at the gate Darien drove for about five more minutes and then he came to a nicely sized country house, it reminded him of his home.

Parking in the driveway Darien recognized the Deputy's car so he felt confident that this was the right house. At the front door he pushed the door bell and he also heard the bells go off inside of the house also. Looking into the windows next to the door he saw a middle aged women and a older woman walking down the hardwood steps toward the door.

Putting on his most friendly and convincing smile Darien impatiently waited for the door to open, then finally the door opened up to revel the older woman and the younger woman he had previously seen coming down the staircase. With them was the Deputy and a little boy that held a striking resemblance towards Bryant and the rational side of Darien knew it was Bryant's Six year old son. Darien decided to introduce himself first since not one person was saying anything yet.

" Hello, I'm Darien and your name is?"

The middle aged women looked him over suspiciously and seemed to reluctantly announce her name. " Yes, Hello. My name is Mrs. Laura Tate and the people standing before you are my son Robert and my mother, Katherine. And I trust you know who this man is, your Deputy."

Darien noticed that when Laura said her name she seemed to defend her status as Mrs. It seemed like she was still trying to prove that she was married or something like that. And by her sarcastic remark about him knowing the Deputy, Darien could tell that this woman was going to be annoying.

" Yes it is nice to meet all of you and I hope the time that I spend here is very stress free and that nothing comes up that is of concern."

After he completed his sentence he felt the middle aged woman's gaze, or Laura's gaze on him. It was uncomfortable to have her stare at him with a look of suspicion or something else, Darien still couldn't place it. Again after an awkward silence the older woman named Katherine ushered Darien inside because it didn't seem Laura was going to.

Darien was seated at a wooden kitchen table as he awaited everyone to come back into the kitchen. The Deputy walked in a few minutes later and Darien looked up at him in question as to why Laura was acting so cold or just plain weird, she should be happy he agreed to protect her for a few weeks, after all they did want him to be their bodyguard.

" Okay Darien there is a few things you should know." Stated the Deputy

" What is it, why are they acting so weird towards me? After all they did want me here and they did pay for me to be here also."

" That is very true that they are acting a touch weird, but what would you feel like if a strange man, hired no less was to stay in your house when a loved one just died. I don't know about you Darien but I would be on alert if one of my family members was killed. Oh and know that this house is Laura's mothers home not Laura's. She sold her house when Bryant was proclaimed dead"

" Yeah I guess your right, I will just have to gain their trust in the few weeks that I'm going to be here and I figured it wasn't her house because Bryant didn't travel two hours to work everyday."

" Now you have the spirit, I have to leave now because my job calls me to be at other places, I was just here to see that you made it to the house okay and that the family knew our policy on bodyguards. See you later Darien, this task shouldn't be too hard or challenging for you at all and in no time just think, you will be home."

As Darien watched the Deputy walk out of the house Darien looked out the window and the darkening sky, and he wondered will things get less awkward between him and the family. Darien just figured that he would just take each day as it comes and with what happens, happens. Hearing the floor boards creak Darien looked up and was greeted with Laura who was looking pretty annoyed for some reason.

" Are you just going to sit there all night, or maybe get to know everyone."

" I'm sorry, I though you would come in here and show me around."

Laura huffed and said something under her breath that Darien couldn't hear and he didn't know if he wanted to know what she said anyway.

" Yes, well get up now I decided to show you around the house."

Without saying anything Darien followed Laura around while she showed him the various rooms of the house. He also got to know the other family member a little bit better. The last stop was his bedroom which was a nice size and had a light blue color on the walls, all and all it looked very nice.

" I think you should retire for the day, you look very tired and it looks like you haven't gotten any sleep in the past week. I can't have you falling asleep on the job, can I?"

" I think that is a good idea, I will go to sleep now since it is late."

With a nod Laura left Darien alone in his new bedroom. Seeing as his bag was already brought upstairs Darien changed into his nigh clothes and slide into the full sized bed. After a few moments of reflection on the day that had passed Darien felt very tired and was slowly sliding into an unconscious state when something slowly started nagging at him from the back of his mind to do something, Darien didn't know what though. Just about a scant few minutes past when the nagging turned into some sort of urgency that told him to jump out of bed and find out what was making him so nervous.

Now fully awake again Darien willed himself to calm down and think rationally, after he did that he concluded that he felt like he was being watched. Sliding out of his cold bed Darien slowly crept across the glossy hardwood flooring, thankfully there was no creaking of the wood. As Darien reached the window of his bedroom he pushed back the see-through curtains to be able to see better and he peered out the window. With his eyes straining Darien thought he cause a glimpse of a figure in the yard, but when he strained his eyes even more the figure was gone and so was the feeling of being watched by something or someone.

Walking back into his bed Darien decided to save thinking about this until tomorrow for he really needed to get some kind of sleep in, but for now he concluded that the figure was just apart of his imagination, he was not quite sure he agreed though.

**A/N- There is the newest chapter. I hoped you enjoyed it, Thanks for reading.**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi**__**does.**_

_**A/N- Thank you for reading and reviewing, feedback is appreciated. **_

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It was nighttime over at Serena's house and everyone was very filled up with pizza and a lot of junk food. The friends spend the rest of the day after Darien left just eating, talking and more eating. Everyone was getting ready to retire for the night, well mostly Serena, she wanted to go to sleep. The others seemed ready to stay up the entire night.

Giving up on the idea of sleeping anytime soon Serena reached over and grabbed another handful of potato chips to keep herself occupied. As Serena sat on the couch and watched her friends talk and have fun she was contemplating how and what Darien was doing. She even felt a little jealous because Darien is spending time with another family, not her, but Serena didn't worry excessively about it. The family would probably feel more secure with Darien looking after them.

Mostly Serena was worried about Darien's safety, even though a couple of people on the police force said that nothing would happen while Darien was watching over the family. Serena was still skeptical no matter what they said, in her mind anything could happen or go wrong. If she had it her way she would be with Darien this minute, but she still liked having her friends over for a change.

Serena was just content watching and silently reminiscing of the past, like when she and her friends were younger. Serena missed the days where she and her friends would spend the day talking, shopping and eating. She thought that this moment right now is the closest moment she will have with her friends for awhile and that the time spent together in the next few weeks will be the closest to the past that they can get.

The atmosphere of relaxation and fun made Serena feel faintly sleepy, she couldn't think of another time where she felt as content and safe with her friends as she was now. Serena enjoyed the happiness her friends brought into her life and she would miss them if something happened to any of them. She still couldn't seem to believe that everyone was with her, she didn't think that they would get back together for about another year. She also liked to listen about what they remembered during their younger years, for she had forgotten some things. Just by listening to her friends talk Serena could catch up on what details she missed about her friends lives while she was gone.

As Serena continued to sit quietly she thought that not one of her friends seemed to notice the usual hyper Serena was sitting silently. But in all reality she was wrong, everyone did notice. They were just waiting for her to say something first. Serena's friends all had their ideas about what was wrong with Serena, but not one idea was close to what was really bothering her. They had all picked up on the fact that she was still the same , but also noticeably different in some aspects. Raye couldn't seem to take Serena's silence so she decided to ask if Serena was okay because Serena couldn't possibly lie about something important in front of her friends, right?

Trying to sound happy, light and carefree Raye cautiously directed a question at Serena not knowing how she would react, basically everyone wanted to know why Serena was acting a little weird. " So Serena you have been awfully quiet tonight…you know it is quite nice for once, weird, but nice. Anyway you have asked everyone else questions about themselves, but what we really want to know is how you have been and if anything interesting has happened lately. That's one of the main reasons we are here right now"

" Well Darien and I have been fine, we have also been getting along great."

Everyone looked at Serena like she was leaving something out. Since they have been friends for a long time they could notice when one of their best friends was acting a little weird. Everyone was sitting in a sort of nervous silence hoping that Serena would continue on about how she has been doing.

Raye wasn't convinced or happy with Serena's reply and she was done with waiting for Serena to finally tell everyone what was bothering her, so she decided that maybe Serena needed a little more prompting.

" And what else?…..Come on Serena we know something is wrong, why don't you just get it over with and tell us, it should make you feel better."

Serena looked at Raye, she wanted to smile at Raye's antics because she was just the same, bossy and caring. Figuring that it wasn't time to just start smiling at Raye, Serena thought seriously again. Now with a clear head again Serena still could not believe that she would finally have to tell everyone what's been going on, she would also have to break the somewhat carefree air around her house.

Taking a deep breath Serena thought rationally and came up with the conclusion that she would tell the truth about everything and hope everyone agrees to help, she was procrastinating too much. Another reason she was reluctant in telling her friends everything is because she didn't wasn't to make them feel obligated to help her. So figuring that after all they would find out somehow, or if they didn't they would keep on bothering her about it. In the end Serena thought that telling them everything wouldn't be hard at all and that they would probably listen to her, she was just overreacting about everything.

"Okay guys, I guess right now what I'm going to tell you might be surprising, or not. Do you know about the murders happening lately? Well that's it, this is about the murders."

Feeling a small weight being lifted from her mind Serena looked at the girls and noticed that they were probably thinking the wrong thing right then, they might not think that Serena had direct evidence to the murders and was hiding it from authorities. Serena was about to continue with what she was saying when she was interrupted by Mina. " So your saying that you knew some of the people that were murdered and that's why you have been acting a little quiet and weird, your mourning for them, right?" After she was finished talking Mina looked at the other girls to see if that's what everyone else was thinking.

" Your close Mina, sort of close actually, but Darien did know about one person who was murdered, he trained the guy and that's about all you got right. This is something more serious….I think that we have a new enemy on our hands and in fact I'm most certain that's correct."

Finished talking Serena waited for someone to ask more questions about what she had just said. Looking down at her lap Serena nervously twisted her hands, afraid that her friends wouldn't want to help find and defeat the new enemy because they had more responsibilities now like jobs and college.

Serena was surprised when Amy was the one to talk first. " So what your telling us is that these murders that are happening lately are a new enemy, with powers or something like what we have dealt with in the past. How are you so sure that this is the case with the murders and not some crazed serial killers or killer. I'm just making sure Serena, did you make sure that your not overreacting, did you research this? Or did someone specifically target you and Darien? Does Darien even know about this or is there another way you found out about the murders and the new enemy?"

This time Serena wasn't surprised that Amy had gotten mostly everything right as to why Serena knew that there was a new enemy. Thinking about Amy's questions Serena mentally answered all of them and she also thought about how Amy was the same as she had always been. Now there was only one last part left, tell them all of the details and if they will help her and Darien.

" Yes Amy you are right and thanks for having so much confidence in me….that's sarcastic, I hope you know that. There is some interesting evidence that Darien and I have received by mail. But before I tell you everything will all of you be willing to go after and defeat these new enemies with me?"

Unsure about what they would say Serena didn't look anyone in the eye she just looked up and stared into space waiting for an inevitable answer that she had asked for.

Not even a few seconds later all of Serena's friends chorused their agreement together. Looking at her friends Serena smiled and felt relief that she and Darien wouldn't be alone on this. In her heart Serena knew that they wouldn't have left her behind to face this without them, Serena just needed confirmation that they would actually go and fight the enemy with her.

" Now look who has little confidence in us, you knew we would say yes." Lita said

" Thanks everyone, I really knew that you would agree, I just needed to make sure."

"Now we need to get up and see this package that was delivered to you and Darien. It obviously sounds important to finding out who is killing innocent people." Amy said.

Everyone grabbed their trash from all of the food that they had consumed and carried it into the kitchen where Serena gathered everyone's plates and put them in the sink so she could wash them later.

" I have the package right in this cabinet, an original hiding spot isn't it? It contains all of the evidence that we need and as soon as Darien gets back from his bodyguard duty in a couple or a few weeks we will then get onto finding out where this enemy is hiding and how to defeat them."

" Wait, did you say a few weeks? I thought we were just staying for about a week and a half." Raye said.

Again everyone looked at Serena for a answer. " Well guys, I really forgot to tell you about that, do you think you would be able to stay for maybe another week and a half, please? You see I don't know exactly when Darien will come back home, I just know it will be in one week to two weeks time." So does everyone think that they can stay that long?"

Again everyone said that that would be fine, they just wanted an explanation.

After getting everything straightened out with her friends again, Serena walked over to the dark hardwood cabinet that contained the package that she had sat there the previous night and then she picked the heavy parcel up that contains everything essential to their success on the murder case.

" Now before I let everyone look through this there are some very gruesome pictures taken from the policeman who was murdered and some journal entries from him also, it seems unbelievable that he actually got to send all of this evidence, but he did. He was killed just barely an hour after sending this to us. Well I guess it is just good luck that we received it and I will be happy with that."

"Yeah, very good luck." Added Mina.

As Serena brought down the packaged she felt all of her friends stare at it, wondering what might be inside of it even though Serena had told them only moments before. As she placed the package on the table the girls practically ripped it open because they were so curious.

Glad that she wasn't holding the package anymore, Serena walked out of the kitchen as her friends were looking in amazement at all of the evidence. Serena felt that she didn't need to see anymore of the evidence or the pictures for that matter.

Passing the phone as she walked aimlessly around the house she almost picked it up to call Darien, but remembered that she had never received or had been given the home phone number to where Darien was staying. Changing her mind about not trying to call Darien, Serena backed up to use the home phone. Serena decided to give his cell phone a try, but he rarely had his cell phone on him, she tried anyway. As the phone was ringing Serena knew that it was off because it just kept on ringing and ringing so she decided that when the voice mail came on she would call again the next day, maybe he would answer then.

Finished with trying to contact Darien, Serena was a little frustrated that she couldn't talk to him about anything, like she usually could. So with little else to do she walked back over to her friends that were gathered around her kitchen table, she wished that they were done exploring the parcel. She knew that they had all read most of the journal entries and seen the horrible pictures in the short time that she had walked around. She looked into the faces of her friends and knew that they wanted to find the enemies right away, they had probably seen the pictures of the family that was killed and read the very informative journal entries.

" We had no idea that this would be so bad Serena, we all looked at the set of pictures and we can't believe that someone would do that. I personally think that we should start figuring out our plan of action soon because I sort of want to avenge the families that were killed and I have some confidence that everyone agrees with me." Lita said.

As expected everyone did agree and they all wanted to start figuring out a plan of action, but first Serena had something to say, " Sorry to break it to all of you right now, but I'm super tired and want to get some rest before we start figuring things out, and maybe we should wait until Darien calls us and gives us news on how he is doing. Does that sound good? I think that each of us should think of a plan so we can proceed with finding the enemy and tomorrow we will all talk about it."

" I want to add something before we go to bed, we still don't know if this evidence is all accurate or if it was intercepted by someone, we should be really careful." Amy said.

Everyone nodded their head and started heading upstairs to their bedrooms, where Darien had set up all of their bags. As she watched all of her friends depart from the kitchen and head upstairs for bed Serena felt déjà vu because yet again she was gathering up the cluttered papers and putting them into a neat, clean pile. Then storing them away in a hardwood kitchen cabinet. Serena shut off all of the downstairs lights and just went straight to bed, she was just too tired to do or think about anything else.

With Darien

--

As Darien woke up in the morning he smelled something cooking, he was confused because usually Serena only would make food like toast or something simple, this smelt like a very huge breakfast. As Darien sat up and opened his eyes he realized that this wasn't his home, he was technically at work being a bodyguard. Sliding out of the warm sheets Darien got ready to go downstairs and greet everyone. He was slightly annoyed that they hadn't woke him up since he is supposed to protect them. He didn't have a single alarm clock or clock for that matter in his temporary bedroom.

As Darien was walking along the unfamiliar hallway something was bothering him. And as he was walking down the carpeted staircase Darien looked straight ahead to a window, then he remembered. Late the other night he had been awakened out of his sleep and went to the window and saw something or someone. He couldn't rid his mind of that for some reason. What if something was watching everyone right now and what if they had been killed when he was asleep or maybe the thing was plotting to kill them?

Finally in the kitchen Darien hoped that Laura would be more civil towards him because that would make everything go much easier for him and everyone else in the house.

Taking a seat at the large table in the kitchen Darien impatiently waited for someone to come in and talk to him, hearing and feeling his stomach growl he also wanted to eat breakfast.

After sitting at the table for ten minutes Darien was bored so he started thinking of the night before, yet another time. He was worried, but mostly about Serena and the others because the thing that he saw last night could have possibly been someone dangerous.

Darien had a gut feeling that it was the enemy outside last night, so he thought that right when he was done with breakfast he would call Serena and the others, then he would warn them just incase. Maybe after he did that he would ask Laura if she knew anything, he doubted it.

Darien's concentration was broken by a very hot steaming plate being placed in front of him. He looked up and saw Laura. She was looking down at him in annoyance, the reason, he didn't know. " You could have gotten your own food, everything was out. Next time just get it yourself."

Nodding his head and saying his thanks for the breakfast Darien thought on the bright side of things, which was that Laura seemed a little less spiteful or mean. She did look a bit tired though, maybe that's why she was being more tolerable. Darien wondered why she would be mad at him or whatever feeling she felt towards him, maybe because he got to spend a lot of time with her husband on the police force and she was angry at that?

Looking away from his plate of food Darien saw that Laura was leaving the room, but he needed to ask her another question. Darien decided that he would ask Laura if she was outside last night, he thought that asking her that would be the best incase she really knew something. He would then call Serena and tell her the news. If Laura was outside last night, he would have told Serena and the others that there was an enemy, that would have put everyone on the lookout for an enemy that wasn't really after them. But Darien really did doubt that Laura was outside last night.

" Laura, I have to ask you something really quick, it is just a question." Laura had stopped walking and was looking at him expectantly, so he continued. " Last night were you or anyone else outside by chance because I though I had seen something or someone right outside my window last night, they seemed to be looking at me."

" Well I guess I was outside pretty late last night because I was covering some plants for the cold night, but I wasn't by your guest bedroom window at all and to the best of my knowledge neither was anyone else, they were all getting into bed. Do you think it was someone after me or my family? Oh, I also want to know why you didn't get up and tell someone if you saw something watching you. You are a bodyguard, right?

" I wasn't sure what or who it was, they just moved too fast for me to get a better look, it is nothing to worry about right now and it could have just been a dream or part of my imagination. And yes I am a bodyguard, if I wasn't why would I be here and why would you have hired me?"

She looked at him skeptically like he was lying and with that she turned around and left him alone to eat his breakfast. As he picked through his eggs and pancakes he entertained the thought that she might have poisoned the food with something, but he thought better of that idea because she wouldn't go to that much trouble to kill him when a lot of people knew he was staying over here.

After finishing his non-poisoned breakfast he wondered what he could do for the few weeks he was going to be here. Standing up and putting his plate in the sink he went to find Laura so he could ask her some more questions. Just as he was going to go outside and find her, he turned a corner in the hallway and saw a black wall phone. He decided that he would call Serena and the others and tell them about last night.

As the phone was ringing he looked out of the sliding glass window in front of him and watched Laura's son Robert. He looked a lot like he remembered Bryant to look like, Darien figured that it would be hard for Laura to cope with a son that looked exactly like her dead husband. The phone was still ringing as Darien was watching Laura's son. Then when Darien thought that everyone was out somewhere and he was about to turn off the phone Serena ended up answering it.

As Serena answered the phone she sounded like she had gotten some sleep finally and that she was happy and just waking up.

"Hello?"

" Hey Serena, it's me."

"Darien! How have you been? It has only been about a day and a half and I already miss you. What have you been doing and has anything interesting happened where you are staying?"Darien didn't know where to start as he was bombarded with multiple questions from a excited and happy Serena.

" Well for starters I have been fine and yes I miss you also. Nothing has really happened, but one thing has been weird, it happened last night."

" What is it? I really hope your not in any danger after all."

" I have no clue if I'm in danger, but last night I was awakened by a feeling of dread and so I went to the window in my bedroom because I felt eyes on me. Basically when I blinked whatever I had seen was gone, they were too fast. I don't know if it was an animal or an enemy. I want to also tell you that you better be on the look out for anything out of the ordinary because there definitely is something out there."

" Okay, I will tell everyone the news when we get off of the phone. So I guess the girls and I should be on alert at all times now."

" Yeah. So are you doing good now?"

"I'm fine now, all of us are just trying to make a plan to catch the enemies, oh and I told everyone about the delivered package and almost everything that I knew about the murder case."

"That's good, it sounds like they all took the information well. Now I need to go because I'm getting a death glare from Laura, Bryant's wife, since I'm supposed to be watching them. Bye, I will talk to you later. Love you and be careful."

" Okay, I will, talk to you later and I love you, bye."

As Darien shut off the phone he walked over to Laura and offered information as to who he was talking to. " I called my wife, but I got off of the phone to watch everyone."

" I figured that much, I'm not stupid."

As Laura walked over to the door and opened it she motioned for him to follow her. As Darien followed Laura he was lead to the backyard and then to the side of the house. She then pointed to the grass and a few plants. Looking down Darien realized that they had been ran over by someone's shoe. Thinking, Darien remembered last night and he concluded that someone was watching him the other night after all.

The shoe print was huge, from what he guessed it was a male that was outside last night. He felt a shiver go through his body as he thought about someone watching them and without him knowing until the last minute, but why hadn't they disrupted more than the plants on the ground, why hadn't they been more careful of their presence? Were they trying to make themselves known? Darien didn't know, but all of the clues he was gathering from the beginning were not making much sense to him. They didn't break in or anything else for that matter, Darien was now one hundred percent sure that there is an enemy watching them, perhaps right now, but he doubted it. Darien was still contemplating about the shoe prints in the yard and under his window when a voice cut through his concentration.

" I think you were right about last night Darien."

"Yeah, are you sure it wasn't you or anyone else? If it wasn't then I will need to watch you and everyone else in the house more often now and stay up later."

" Yes I'm sure it wasn't anyone I know, and you should have been watching us the best you possible could have from the first time you stepped foot into this house and agreed to protect everyone."

Feeling stupid Darien didn't answer, he was angry about what Laura had said to him, Darien had thought she was getting more tolerable, he was wrong. Ignoring whatever else Laura had to say he started walking away to sit down and watch everyone. But again Laura's voice stopped him from proceeding to the lawn chair. Laura's verbal onslaught seemed to be endless as she continued to antagonize him.

" Did you think that this wasn't an important task? Because I heard the police chief saying that they shouldn't have sent you, they said that you were the best that they have and that they are wasting your time on a pointless guard duty since they thought that not one person would target me because my husband was killed. Well what I know that they don't know is that the person you saw last night 'visits' here every night, but they don't do anything so I don't bother them."

Darien was speechless because of what Laura just said, she was right in thinking that everyone on the police force thought that this was a pointless mission and a joke and that Laura shouldn't need to request a bodyguard.

What Laura had been ignoring was extremely dangerous, he couldn't believe that Laura didn't tell the police that there is a man coming to her house every night and watching them inside of the house and that they don't know who it is. If the police force had given this task to another person that wasn't trained just like him and that person that was spying or looking in on the family decided to attack it could have ended in disaster for the police force, the policeman and the family. Still stunned Darien had to ask another question, but he hoped that that answer would be a no.

" Are you absolutely serious about what you just said?"

" Yes, why would I lie, I'm beginning to think that your incredibly dense asking all of these obvious questions. Are you sure that you're the best on the police force? Or maybe the police just doesn't know how to train people properly."

A few years on the police force taught him to deal with criminals who taunt and talk back, but not for a seemingly normal citizen who had hired him for their protection. If he was her he would have been happy with even the worst police man. Not being provoked by the woman he just walked on and ignored her. As he walked away she seemed to be furious because of him. As she stormed past him he sat in a plastic lawn chair and stared up at the sky for a few minutes.

Darien made up his mind that he would talk to her only when she had cooled down a little. Darien figured that he really needed to talk to Laura to see what her real problem was, because he was just getting pieces of what she truly felt.

As he walked back inside of the house Darien changed his mind and decided that he would save talking with Laura for a different day since they had plenty more days together in the next few weeks.

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**_A/N- So this is the new chapter, I guess this is just a filler chapter. I have more interesting things planned later though, the next chapter will be out soon._**


	10. Chapter 10

A/N- Thank you for reading and reviewing, feedback is appreciated.

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A day had passed since Serena had last talked to Darien on the telephone, since then the house was full of nervousness. The next morning everyone had put together their ideas as to what they were going to do about finding and getting rid of the enemies, all of the plans included Darien helping them, so basically they were stuck at Serena's house until he arrived back home.

After the friends spent the first few days getting reacquainted with each other they started running out of things to do, everything seemed to be getting quite boring around the house and it had only been about three days since Darien had left. It was surprising that they were running out of things to do because when they were younger it was so easy to find something to occupy themselves with.

The night before Serena had told her friends about what Darien thought he saw outside of his guest bedroom window, so now everyone was on alert and constantly looking out the window like they were paranoid, when before they were relaxed, now as expected everyone was a little bit jumpy. After talking with each other they all decided that there was definitely something out there, maybe whatever was watching them was out there somewhere right now, they did not know.

What no one knew was that Serena was keeping something hidden from them, again, she just did not feel like talking about it because she felt it was just easier to keep it to herself and she also felt that it wouldn't pertain to the current situation.

The morning after she had talked to Darien on the phone the whole day turned out perfect and nothing of interest happened, but Serena figured something had to happen sooner or later and it did in the form of the same nightmare that she had been getting for a while, it just hadn't happened for a week or so. It was a surprise to Serena when it did happen and she was so unprepared for it that her nightmare had started to ruin her day already. Serena also decided that she wouldn't tell Darien about it either because she didn't want him to worry, he had enough on his mind and she was doing fine right now without even telling anyone, she was just a little more on guard now than before.

Thinking back to last night Serena had woke up in her bedroom right after her nightmare was over and had instantly reached for Darien, but he wasn't there, when she realized that he wasn't with her she had panicked and she had forgotten the past few days in her fear. After she had sat in bed and stared at the shadows in her bedroom, thinking someone might be there. After a little while later she collected herself and then she remembered that Darien was away from home and that she was in her house with her friends.

Deciding to not go back to bed since it was about time for her to get up she thought about what had happened in her nightmare. Serena also wondered if she had screamed during her nightmare and possibly woken up her friends, she decided that she didn't wake them up or they would have been in her room as fast as they could. She thought that the only thing different about her reoccurring nightmare was that this time she remembered that she was dreaming while she was going through the familiar sequence of her nightmare. And when she tried to get a good look at her pursuer she just saw a shadowed face and the only parts of the face that she could see was the outline of a very masculine nose and jaw, but what Serena had also remembered was that the face had an eerily familiar look to it.

Taking her nightmare in stride for once, Serena tried her hardest to hold the image of the shadowed face in her mind as she was flipping through her pink dust covered photo album. She hadn't picked the thing up since she developed her wedding pictures. As she was flipping through the picture packed pages, not one picture caught her eye as to who might be the mysterious pursuer in her nightmares, but they obviously wanted to harm her and she was positive that it was a guy. Flipping carefully through the photo album one last time Serena again didn't see any faces that caught her eye, she just saw pictures of her and Darien and a whole bunch of her and her friends.

Giving up on trying to find a face that resembled the shadowy one in her nightmare, she slide the album back under her bed. Standing up and stretching Serena yawned and started across the hall so she could start opening her guest bedroom doors and start waking up her friends. With a devious smile on her face, Serena knocked on the bedroom door as loud as she could and yelled, "Time for everyone to get up!"

Then she quickly opened the door and entered the guest bedroom, she was then greeted with a pillow being thrown into her face. Almost instantly, a voice answered the question Serena was going to ask.

" Serena, why did you have to wake us up so early?" Mina said in the most pitiful and whiny voice she could make. Serena could also hear some sleepy responses to what Mina had said. Looking at the sleeping figures on the bed and floor Serena realized that everyone was in the one medium sized room. Feigning hurt, Serena said, "I'm hurt, everyone came in here last night and didn't invite me." Hiding another smile Serena looked sadly at her friends.

"Don't make us throw more pillows at you Serena, we know your faking. Though you were already asleep when we came to get you." Lita said.

Not knowing what else to say Serena looked over at the alarm clock and it read 8:00 a.m. Serena was a little surprised that she woke up at this time and by herself because usually Darien would have to drag her out of bed on occasion.

"Well it is early, I didn't realize it, and it must be because Darien always insists that I get up so early with him and that I quit my lazy sleeping habits." Serena laughed. This time Raye had something to say.

" Well next time you decide to get up this early please refrain from waking us up until about 11:00 or 10:00 a.m. Amy might want up now though, you will have to ask her." Finished with talking Raye laid back down and closed her eyes, Serena assumed that she had gone back to sleep.

Sighing Serena turned around and walked out of the bedroom, making sure to shut the door on her grumpy friends. As Serena arrived downstairs, she quickly jumped on the couch and turned on the television. Flipping through random channels out of boredom Serena just stared blankly at the channels on the television screen. Closing her eyes, she thought she would go back to sleep and then go back upstairs to wake everyone else up after about two more hours.

As Serena was falling asleep her body suddenly jerked her awake, it felt like she had missed a step on the stairs. Confused and awake she glanced over at the television to possibly get the time, disappointed she wasn't asleep for more than five minutes. About to go to sleep again she absently heard the news castors talking, grabbing for the remote to shut the television off Serena had a feeling that she should look at the screen.

Sitting upright again, Serena strained to see the screen of the television because sunlight from the window was streaming onto the screen. Too lazy to get up and go across the room to shut the blinds Serena just stretched her tired muscles and grabbed the remote and as she was about to turn off the screen again when something that the newscaster said caught her attention. Eyes wide with curiosity Serena turned her full attention to the screen so she could listen to the somber newscaster that was talking in monotone.

"Currently the time is 8:15 in the morning. We have just received breaking news. Four men were found and proclaimed dead today, they were found outside their office building, which is located in the seedier part of the city at approximately 2:00 in the morning. Officials say the cause of death for the four men was all different, one had various knife wounds littered all over his body and the other man was shot a few times. The third and fourth men appear to be strangled and beat to death. At this point Officials are declaring the cause of death to be murder and they don't know if it is a connection to the previous murders in the U.S and the recent burning of the police headcounters, stay tuned for more details later in the day."

Leaning back against the couch Serena thought about what she had just heard on the news. She guessed that she shouldn't feel any shock that the murderers had finally come over to Japan, Serena absently wondered if Darien knew about this yet. Serena knew that this wasn't just some random killing and she knew that the police suspected that too. Thinking on the subject some more, the television started turning to background noise and then slowly started to fade until Serena wasn't thinking anymore, she just fell asleep.

A little while later Serena felt someone shaking her shoulder and someone calling her name, the voice sounded very familiar. Opening her eyes Serena was greeted with big clear blue eyes, Amy. Staring at Amy as if she was stupid Serena felt like asking what had happened, Serena didn't even know if anything did happen. Suddenly realizing that she had fallen asleep on the couch, she sleepily asked Amy a question. "Hey Amy, sorry I fell asleep, I forgot to wake you guys up didn't I?"

"Yeah, you forgot Serena." Said Amy in her light voice.

"So what's wrong, you wouldn't be looking at me like that if something wasn't wrong."

"Well, Darien wants to talk to you now and he told us just a few minutes ago that he was watching the news and he saw that there was more murders."

Sitting up quickly Serena pushed a startled Amy out of the way on accident. Feeling wide-awake Serena had just remembered what she had seen on the television.

_Oh man, I cannot believe I forgot to tell everyone right away about the murders! I can't believe that something that important slipped my mind, they are going to be upset with me. _

Cautiously gathering her courage to tell everyone the important news she had forgot to tell them, Serena made her voice sound extremely apologetic.

"Hey! Yes, I know about the new murders, I fell asleep before I could tell you guys, oh and tell Darien that I will talk to him tomorrow. I'm still feeling sleepy and I really don't feel that good right now."

Feeling a little guilty about not talking to Darien, Serena stood up and walked over to the kitchen table where the rest of her friends were sitting. In the background, Serena could hear Amy chatting with Darien about what he had seen on the television screen. Serena was also happy that her friends hadn't said anything yet about her not telling them the news. Turning towards her friends, Serena heard Raye Speak to her. "Serena!" Grimacing Serena recognized that tone of voice, it was the one that Raye used when she was angry.

…_. I thought I had gotten off free this time. Sigh._

Before Serena could even think about saying anything else in her defense, Raye started a full out rant that was directed towards Serena.

"Why didn't you wake us up if you saw that there were more murders, you knew that we would have listened. This stuff is important if you didn't know already. I don't know what you think sometimes, almost everything seems to slip your mind now"

Deciding not to get into an argument with Raye because Serena just didn't feel like it, she thought that she would try and satisfy her friend with an apologetic response, thinking that maybe Raye would feel sorry for yelling at her.

"I know that I didn't tell you guys right away, but for some reason I just fell asleep and didn't wake up until now, I guess I was tired after all."

"Now look at who is tired, you hypocrite. You should have just stayed in bed longer and not bothered anyone until later."

"Yeah I know, but…" Amy had just gotten off the phone with Darien and probably unknowingly interrupted Serena, or maybe she just didn't want to hear Raye and Serena argue like little children.

"I just got off the phone with Darien a few second ago. To basically sum everything up that Darien said to me, the murderers are over by us right now and the city that the men were found in is approximately twenty minutes away from this house. In addition, the police over here are trying to hide the fact that they are very certain that the enemies or in their case murderers came over here from the U.S. But the reason is unknown still, even to us."

Everyone was silent, they had nothing to say. They all realized that the enemy had finally decided to come over by them. When Amy was finished talking to Darien she motioned for Serena to come over by her. As Serena approached, Amy turned around and walked further away from everyone else.

"Come on Amy, where are we going?"

"I just had to get away from the others for a few minutes; I need to talk to you Serena."

Many things crossed Serena's mind when Amy said that, Serena's main concern though was why did Amy want to talk to her? What was wrong?

"Okay go ahead Amy, I'm listening."

"Well this isn't about me; it's about Darien and you."

Again Serena was confused with what Amy was saying, did something bad happen with Darien? Or worse, did Darien say anything about her that was too awful to tell in front of everyone?

"Now you lost me, what did he say to you?"

"I'm sorry Serena, I made it sound like he was mad at you, and I didn't realize it. Anyway, Darien seemed pretty hurt that you didn't want to talk to him, but what I want to know is why wouldn't you talk to him?"

"Ah, I was just feeling tired and sleepy, plus I think I have a horrible headache on the way, my head is pounding."

"I guess that's a relief that you aren't upset with Darien, he thought you were angry at him for some reason. And I advise that you should maybe take some aspirin for you oncoming headache, it might quell it from becoming any worse than it already is. Oh, also make sure that you try and call Darien either tonight or maybe even tomorrow morning, Okay?"

"Okay, I will, just so you know that is an answer to both of your questions."

Smiling warmly at Serena, Amy walked away to join everyone else, when Amy was out of the room Serena then turned and headed for the kitchen. Serena picked up the container of aspirin and took two out, grabbing a glass and filling it with tap water Serena watched as the clear liquid swirled around in the glass before she took a sip of water and swallowed the two pills together.

With Darien

--

Darien had just clicked of the phone and put it on the charging cradle, Darien was just thinking about Serena and the others. For one he was worried as to why Serena didn't want to talk to him on the phone. Yes, he heard that she wasn't feeling good, but any other day she would have talked to him anyway. Hoping that Serena wasn't irritated or angry with him Darien went back to watching over the house and its occupants.

The past three or maybe it was four days, Darien had lost count on how many days he had been in the house, Darien was very bored with doing the same activates everyday. Watching the family was as interesting as watching the same picture or painting repeatedly, the family did not have any variation to their schedule at all. Darien surmised that it would be very easy for a stalker or a bugler to figure out the day-to-day schedule of the family, he guessed it was a good thing that the family hired him to watch everything.

Leaning back in the white plastic chair Darien wished that he could fast-forward through the next week or so. What made everything worse was that it was really hot, he wondered why the whole family was outside when every sane person would be inside with the air-condition on.

As time passed Darien was starting to get bored, his whole entire day was spent watching the family, he would also notice that Laura always looked over to him frequently; she probably wanted to make sure that he was actually watching them and doing his job.

Later in the day when the sun started going down everyone went back inside, Darien breathed a sigh of relief, he was sure that he was a few shades darker now from being in the sun for so long.

As the family went inside Darien made sure to lock all of the doors and windows, he also pulled the blinds; he had been doing this since he saw something outside of his window. Waiting for everyone to get in bed before he went to sleep Darien sat downstairs and listened to everyone, once everyone was quiet he shut the lights off and was about to walk into his bedroom when he noticed that Laura still had her bedroom lights on.

Feeling as if he should check if everything was all right, he walked across the hall to her bedroom and looked in. Laura was awake, which was quit unusual because she usually was in bed very early, she was sitting on her bed and just staring out the window. Darien was confused because when the light was on in the bedroom it was virtually impossible to see anything outside unless you had the light off, in the end Darien figured that she was just thinking and not staring out the window.

Walking back to his bedroom Darien put his sleeping clothes on and settled in to bed. Staring at the ceiling in the dark room which was lightly illuminated by the moonlight Darien wondered what was going to come of everything that was happening now. Rolling over in bed Darien copied was Laura was doing only moments earlier, he started staring out the window. The difference was that he could actually see everything outside, well he could see as much as his limited night vision could offer. After a few boring minutes of staring out of the window, he started getting tired and he decided that nothing was outside of the house at that moment.

Three hours later

--

Later that night Darien woke up, he sensed nothing was wrong, but he desperately needed to go to the bathroom and also get a drink of water.

Cautiously getting out of bed Daren decided not to turn on any lights because he didn't want to wake or alarm any of the occupants in the house. Dodging where he knew his clothing and packed bag was he silently walked towards the bathroom.

Once he was done with the bathroom, he took a flimsy disposable cup with flowers on it from the countertop that housed about one hundred more of the cups and filled it with tap water from one of the his and her sinks. Drinking the liquid Darien remembered that this tap water tasted nothing like his water at home and threw out the remaining chlorine tasting water and then threw out the cup.

Feeling very grumpy and tired, Darien headed as quietly as he could downstairs, thankful for the moonlight because that illuminated the way to the kitchen. Once he was in the kitchen he grabbed a tall glass from the shelf, Darien then opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the pitcher of purified water and poured himself a glass. Sitting down at the table with his water he still had all of the lights off, he heard absolutely nothing moving inside of the house.

Quickly finishing off his water because he wanted to go back to bed, he placed the cup into the sink for it to be washed later and then he started to slowly walk back upstairs, but something caught his eye.

Turning back around Darien noticed that the blinds had been obscured since that last time he was downstairs which was only three hour ago.

_Know one should be up yet, it is still very early and everyone just went to bed. I remember sliding the blinds in place before I went to bed and I should have heard if someone got up, especially if they went outside. _

Darien felt some fear gather in his mind and he thought of all the reasons as to why the blinds are in the wrong order. Either someone broke inside of the house, which would be the worst-case scenario or someone went outside, which would also be very bad.

Fixing the cream-colored blinds, Darien pulled the string and they all went neatly back into place. Darien then proceeded to unlock the door, but it was already unlocked.

_No, I swear that I locked it before I went to bed, I made sure to, and someone is definitely outside, though it has to be one of the family members. _

Feeling thankful that he hadn't put any lights on he peered out the sliding glass door and looked around outside. Not surprisingly, he could see Robert, the little boy that is Laura's son. Robert was sitting on the cold grass with his knees up to his chest. Darien was about to walk outside and pick up the boy and bring him inside when he saw another figure, looking closely to that figure he could see that it was most definitely a female. About to push open the door Darien noticed that she looked familiar, it was Laura. As he was watching the two figures closely he noticed yet another figure came out of the darkness from the opposite direction of the house. This time it was a male figure and he wasn't able to distinguish who it was.

_I feel really bad now, I should have heard them moving around the house. I'm getting paid to protect them, but it is not my fault if they intentionally put themselves in danger though._

Now concerned for the safety of the family Darien started opening the door, intent to go over to the two family members that might be in harms way. At the moment Darien wasn't concerned as to why the two family members were outside, all he knew was that he needed to get them inside quickly before something bad happens.

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A/N- Okay, the next chapter will be out soon. I finally have less work to do now and that gives me more time to write.


	11. Chapter 11

As Darien cautiously stepped out of the warm house and into the surprisingly cold night he was careful to take his time in getting to the two family members that were standing out in the darkness.

He didn't want to alert the man that was with them, just in case he was a threat to the family. Because if the man did decide to attack the pair, Darien wouldn't be able to get to them in time. What Darien was planning on doing was to sneak up and surprise the guy, then he would probably kill him, unless he was told otherwise.

But what Darien really wanted to do was to go back inside and go to bed, he thought or was told that being a bodyguard for this family would be easy and with no conflict.

Clearing his thoughts and deciding to not directly approach the group, he slowly bent down and crouched behind a very thick line of shrubs that was placed all around the house and the property. Darien wanted to make sure that the family was being threatened before he attacked the man standing with them. Straining his ears to eavesdrop on the trio's conversation, Darien could only make out a few whispered words that didn't seem to hold any importance.

Getting ready to dart to another bush so he could hear better, Darien quickly made his way to another thick shrub only this time his foot landed on a fallen tree branch. Darien knew the snap of the branch even before it happened and when it did happen the noise seemed much more amplified to him. Darien imagined that at any moment the group would probably start walking over to where the noise was and then decide to investigate.

Gently lifting up his shoe from the broken branch and getting ready to dart away from the group again, Darien decided to first part the plants in front of him and see if they had noticed anything. What Darien saw was a relief, the group had only stopped talking and started looking around, but thankfully they seemed to pass it off as an animal or something else.

The only problem that worried Darien was that the unknown man with the family would always look over to where Darien was hidden behind the shrubs. It felt like the man knew that Darien was there and that he was watching them.

After five minutes, Darien was trying to ignore the oncoming leg cramp from sitting in a crouched position for so long. Trying to relieve the pain in his leg he looked up to the sky, there was clouds moving and covering the moon, it cast an ominous look to the backyard that Darien was in.

Concentrating again on the voices that were coming from the group ahead of him, Darien could hear everything that they said with clarity. The man that Darien didn't know started talking; he didn't seem like the brightest of people, but even from where Darien sat he looked incredibly tall and very strong.

Darien also kept in mind that this could possibly be an enemy and that everyone could be in danger. But what irritated Darien the most was that the family he was supposed to be protecting was outside without him and they were in the darkness. He also distantly remembered that Laura said there was a man that would stand right outside of the house almost every night.

_Maybe this is the man that Laura was talking to me about the other day, but why would she want to talk to a man that would look into her windows every night? This might also be the person who was outside when I woke up the other night._

Darien still didn't understand why she would bring her son with her to see a stranger, especially at night.

_Maybe I missed something when Laura was telling me about the man, because when I asked her about it she was calm and I was livid, I may have missed something. But still, why would they go outside and see a stranger, especially when I'm in the house with them._

Dropping his thoughts when he heard the man speak again, Darien paid close attention to what he was saying. Trying to hear everything Darien ducked even lower into the plants and held his breath so he could catch everything that the man was saying. "You didn't complete what I asked of you, why? Do you think that I should replace you and if I do end up replacing you then everyone around here dies" The dark figure looked very pleased with himself, he seemed to like to boast about his strength and power.

Laura seemed scared as she struggled to answered all of the questions that was thrown at her. "I…I don't know, what did I do? And why would you think about replacing me?" Darien was surprised at Laura's response, he expected her to yell at the man or anything else than what she did. With only a few words, she was reduced to stuttering and looking weak which was the opposite of what she acted like in front of him.

"Don't act dumb with me, Laura." The man seemed quite angry with her, he also acted like he knew her very well.

" Fine, I will try harder next time, okay? That is all that I have to say for you, now go and leave our son out of this. I can't believe that I even brought him outside to see you, he is scared to death now." After Laura was done talking, Darien replayed what she had said again in his head. He didn't know if he heard her right, it could have been a mistake, at least he liked to think of it as one.

_What! This isn't her husband, it cant be Bryant, he was never this cruel._

Darien was trying to figure out how this could be Bryant, but he came up with absolutely nothing. Darien had attended the funeral and he had been very much dead, there was absolutely no way he could be standing just feet away from him. Some part of Darien was happy that his friend was okay, but this person talking to Laura wasn't the friend that he knew.

_No, this isn't him, something is very wrong with this situation. I still haven't seen his face and his voice is a little different than I remember, so it might not be him. Or maybe this is just another man that Laura knew._

" No! No to both questions" The man's hard voice cut through the air and he saw Laura jump in surprise. Obviously she expected the man to agree with her. Darien watched as the man looked away from Laura a moment and then glance at the plants where Darien was hiding in.

As the man was ignoring the two people next to him, he didn't see Laura nudge the shaking Robert with her foot. Without missing another beat, the man turned back to Laura and spoke to her as Robert darted across the yard and into the cold night, unseen.

"Well then, what do you want me to do, since your answer is… no." Darien caught a quiver in her voice when she said "no".

As more transpired between them, Darien could barely register the words that the man and Laura were saying, it was a complete shock. Darien didn't know what to do.

Before he could make a proper decision, Darien watched the events unfold in front of him and they seemed to go by in slow motion. The man never answered Laura's question, he just slapped her hard across the face, and he had slapped her hard enough to draw blood.

Darien was almost on his feet to run over to Laura when he felt something by his side. Ignoring whatever he had felt, he started heading towards the two angry figures ahead of him at a quick pace.

Darien finally stopped when a movement and a shadow crossed his peripheral vision. Turning to his right, he saw Robert. The boy was trembling and was looking at him in a frightened manner, as if asking him to help his mother. Before he could speak to the shuddering boy, he heard the man finally answer Laura's previous question.

"You had your last chance today! You should have listened to me the first time."

'Bryant' grabbed her by the arm and pulled her closer to him. "We had a deal, it seems that you don't value your family much, so this won't be hard at all for you."

The man dropped her arm and sharply turned to his side, he seemed to be looking for something. After a few seconds the man seemed angry, in fact Darien could practically feel the man's frustration and anger rolling off of him and into the still night air.

Again the figure spun around to face Laura, he looked like he wanted an explanation for something. In a small voice Laura asked, " What is wrong?" The man's frown deepened, while Laura smirked knowingly, like she knew something that he didn't.

" Where is he, where is the boy at?" His voice sounded like he was barely able to hold in his anger.

" What boy? You surely don't mean our son, do you? Well he is long gone, he left while you were talking to me." Darien could practically hear the triumph in her voice.

_I have to do something soon, this is going to get bad._

Darien felt the pressure to do something and anything to protect Laura and Robert. He needed to save the boy and Laura from danger and soon, he also needed to stop stalling.

Darien turned to Robert who was by his right side and pulled him closer, he whispered is the softest voice that he could manage. While he was talking to Robert, Darien hoped that the man wasn't hurting Laura, but the boy needed to be safe before he could save her. " Robert, please go inside and hide somewhere, and you should get your grandmother too. Tell her that there is danger, she should know what to do." Darien watched as the boy nodded numbly and quickly ducked into the house without making much noise.

As Darien made sure Robert was safe and inside the house, he turned his attention back to the fighting pair. Slowly shifting his weight, Darien carefully stood up and started to approach the two arguing figures.

Suddenly as Darien was just feet away from the two, the clouds in the sky parted and the glow of the full moon lit up the two figures. What Darien saw was surprising, the mysterious man that he thought was Bryant, in fact turned out to be him even though he was supposed to be dead.

After a pause Bryant seemed to think about something, soon an evil glint crossed his already dark eyes and Darien saw Bryant perform some sort of complicated hand movement in front of Laura. Next a scream went through the air and then there was a bright white light that pierced the dark night and illuminated the surrounding objects. This time everything seemed to happen so fast, Darien had no time to think.

When the blinding white light faded away, Darien didn't know what was happening so he instinctively looked for Laura and he saw her almost immediately, she was on the grass and looking very pale. Her long dark hair was spread around her messily and all over the place, which was odd because she was usually so neat and clean.

Darien was alarmed when she didn't move, not even when he gently shook her. Suddenly remembering Bryant, Darien looked around for him, he was nowhere in sight. Bryant seemed to have disappeared, but what Darien saw when he looked to his side was a another body laying deathly still next to his. Glancing out of the corner of his eye again, Darien noticed that the body close to Laura hadn't been there before the bright light had illuminated the sky.

Pulling his attention away from the other body and back to Laura, he forgot all about Bryant or maybe he just didn't want to think about him yet. All Darien was thinking about was to get everyone to safety, no matter what the cost was. Picking Laura up off of the ground, he started to walk briskly towards the house, hoping that Robert had taken some sort of safety measure that they had spoken about.

As he was about to reach the side door of the house, Darien didn't hear the gentle crunching of footsteps behind him until he was on the ground holding the back of his head in pain. Dimly he remembered his vision getting darker than he ever thought possible in the already dark night and then a loud noise that vibrated through the air with energy.

Soon everything seemed to spin and that only made Darien's headache feel worse, it felt like someone was taking a hammer to his skull. After an unknown amount of time, the spinning stopped and Darien felt some degree of relief.

Feeling Danger, he slowly sat up and opened his eyes. He saw absolutely nothing at all, but he didn't need light to know that his vision was spinning. As the spinning slowly went away Darien could only feel what he assumed or hoped was damp earth beneath him.

After sitting deathly still on the ground, Darien's vision adjusted to the very dark room. The only thing that he could make out was that he was sitting in some sort of utility room or closest with nothing but the dim light from underneath the door barely lighting the room.

Feeling very open and vulnerable to attack, Darien stood up gradually and thrust his hands out so he could feel if there was any type of objects near him, as if they would tell him where he was exactly.

Suddenly he heard footsteps nearby and someone shuffle their feet around right next to him. Surprised that he hadn't noticed anyone, Darien scrambled backwards until he was hidden once again from sight, but only this time he was behind what seemed like rather large boxes.

Rubbing the back of his head, Darien, who was now even more used to the darkness than before looked over to where he heard the noises. Not surprisingly at all, Laura was there and she was laying on her back, but it didnt look like she had moved at all. She was still deathly pale and he could barely see some blood on her face, he was not sure though because she was not illuminated enough in the dark room, it could have been shadows on her face.

Hearing the steps grow nearer, he wondered whether he should pull Laura over by him. Before he could think properly he jumped forward and grabbed Laura's shirt sleeve, she felt really stiff as he pulled her towards him and she also felt inhumanly cold.

Reaching down for her wrist to check if she was okay, Darien was suprised when he couldn't find a pulse at all. Quickly he bent his head and lowered his ear towards her heart, he heard absolutely nothing. A feeling of dread washed over him, he felt the cold hard facts hit him all at once and way too quickly, he had failed and Laura had died because of his foolishness. He knew that there was no way to bring her back, he just knew it. Darien also needed to accept the fact that she was dead and get on with his life quickly so he could possibly get out of the building alive. Thinking back to what may have killed her, all Darien could think about was the light that Bryant had produced with his hands. Whatever the light was that hit her must have killed her, Darien just wished that she had died quickly.

_I should have acted sooner, I was supposed to protect her. Why did I have to hesitate at attacking Bryant for so long, I didn't even know it was him at first._

Feeling guilt overwhelm him, Darien searched for a sheet to cover her up with as a sort of last respect. As his hands searched the damp ground for some sort of sheet, he suddenly pulled his hands back as if he had been burned, what was lying next to Laura was what disturbed Darien the most.

The sight before him was simply unsettling, there was two more bodies in the room, but they were both the same person, it was Bryant. Walking towards them he felt for a pulse just like he did for Laura. This time however he could feel a pulse in one body, but not the other. Darien wondered if they both were the same person, they had to be though. He also thought back to the body on the ground next to Laura's that had showed up after the light went away.

As echoes of heavy footsteps grew closer to the door, Darien stood up and braced himself for a fight and he planned to win. The footsteps suddenly stopped by the door and the person seemed to hesitate, after a few seconds the footsteps started down the hall again. Sighing Darien was disappointed because he really wanted an opportunity to get out of the dark room which housed him and the three other bodies. Darien decided to try the door anyway though, but just as he figured, it was locked.

Turning around to face the three still bodies, he was surprised to find that only one was on the damp ground. Spinning around so his back faced the door he looked around the room and spotted Laura. She was staring at him, but with deadly vacant eyes that were glazed over with death. For a second all Darien could do was stare at the zombie like Laura, he knew that she still wasn't alive. Darien then saw the other body, which was Bryant, he was also zombie like. Darien looked around the room for a weapon, but he found none in reach.

Choosing his words carefully Darien spoke in a low voice. "I know someone is in here and controlling the bodies, but what I want to know is who or what you are?"

The last figure that was left on the dirt moved so fast Darien had to step back because Bryant was so close to him. "Yes, I suppose that I will tell you. Well I'm not the real Bryant, neither is he." The Bryant impersonator pointed a long finger toward the deathly still body of another Bryant that was on the ground.

Darien was about to ask why he was here, but the man beat him to it. "To put it simply, you were in our way by listening to our conversation, so naturally we need to dispose of everyone who gains information on us." The vile voice seemed to vibrate through the entire room, his voice sounding very awkward with Bryant's face.

As if sensing the displeasure from Darien, the figure laughed again and began changing shape. The once strong and masculine looking face of Bryant started to morbidly morph and change into another masculine face, but shaped differently. And his body also started to obscenely change shape by growing slightly taller and gaining about twenty more pounds. When the transformation was complete, the man didn't resemble Bryant at all anymore.

Trying to not act surprised, Darien nonchalantly asked the figure, " It seems you do this often, but you still haven't answered my previous question."

This time the voice was deep and fitted the face. " Yes. Your right, I do this often. Anyway, to put it bluntly I need to kill you. We all want you dead and the girl didn't fulfill her duties, that's why she lays on the ground dead." The man seemed very pleased with himself for killing Laura because he wore a wide smile. The man didn't seem finished with talking though, so he continued.

"You humans have no power at all and are so easily defeated that it is pathetic." The man said this with a sour look on his face, which twisted his facial features and made his face take on a ghastly appearance.

Letting confusion cross his face Darien asked, "Why didn't you murder me when you first found out about my presence, because you had a lot of opportunities to."

" You don't sound too grateful that I spared your life…well if only for a few more minutes. We need you dead because we know you carry too much information about us and there was way too many witnesses when we were outside of that house, that is why we are here." He stopped and smiled, like he was trying to remember something.

"I shouldn't have even killed Laura when I did, someone could have been watching. Anyway, we figured that you would come after us sooner or later and you would bring company. Speaking about company, they should be dead right about now, or maybe close to it." The man in front of him sneered while waiting for Darien's response. The only thing that kept Darien from attacking the man in front of him was that he needed more information and that he knew Serena and the others could take care of themselves.

Deciding to ignore the comment about the murdering of his wife and her friends Darien continued without missing a beat. "Well how did you know about me and the others, we didn't know about you until just a few weeks ago."

" Oh, you ask nothing about your wife and her friends, I see. But we knew about you because your little friend came poking around and found out too much too soon. You see there is more people like me, we each have our own special abilities so we knew everything about you. And before you ask, yes I knew about the package that was delivered to you, we just thought you would be too stupid to do anything about it. We were surprised when you got so far, we then sent Laura on a special mission to murder you since we knew her husband was your friend. Laura failed like I knew she would, she couldn't kill anyone, even if we did threaten to kill her family…."

As the man continued his rant, Darien was busy looking for a weapon, but he was still listening to him talk. If there was anything that he learned about the guy was that he liked to boast and would only pay attention to whatever would further his cause.

Slowly reaching down along the wall that was behind him, Darien grasped something very heavy, it felt rusty as he ran his fingers over the metal. It was some sort of hammer, maybe a sledge hammer if Darien was lucky.

After discreetly hiding the hammer again, but it was still in reaching distance, Darien paid close attention to the boasting man in front of him, Darien wanted more information and if the man was stupid enough to give it out, he would take it.

Trying to sound nonchalant and interested in the man, Darien asked him another question. "Why did I see you change or shape shift into Bryant and why is another Bryant standing up in this very room, he is supposed to be dead. I also want to know how Laura is involved in this?" The man seemed to think on Darien's questions.

" Well you see, we can change into whoever we want to at anytime or place, isn't that a superior quality compared to whatever you can do?" The man looked like he wanted some more praise about his abilities, so Darien nodded his head.

"When your police friend, Bryant, found out too much, we killed him and read his thoughts and memories. That's why the police station was burned, we knew that he had sent information to you and the other officers by computer. Laura thinks that her husband had to fake his death to get away with charges of murder, which by the way he didn't actually murder anyone anyway. That's why when she saw her 'husband' tonight she wasn't surprised that he was still alive.We found out that she would do just about anything for him, that is the main reason as to why we would change into Bryant." He laughed at Laura's expense and then continued.

"But just incase she wouldn't do anything for him, we told her in Bryant's form that he would kill their son and other family if she didn't help him cover up some of the evidence of the murders. She was supposed to either try and kill you or get information out of you, she did neither so that's why she is dead." The man was looking at him with flat eyes, he suddenly looked bored.

Now Darien knew why Laura was always so unkind and cold, he would also be that way if this was going on in his life. Now the only thing that Darien needed to do was kill this man and possibly the others in the building then break out of this place, where ever it was located. Darien knew that breaking out would be difficult and maybe impossible, but he would at least try.

"What I really want to know is are you human? Or do you come from a different planet?" Darien had gained confidence in knowing that the thing in front of him didn't look too smart, but Darien was still on edge.

The man in front of him smiled and looked like he was about to say something, but he seemed to stop himself. Unexpectedly the man snapped his finger and looked straight at Darien. Darien then felt a slight burning sensation all over his body, it was sort of uncomfortable.

Looking at the shadowed figure, Darien genuinely looked confused. _What is this man doing? Since I met these people or things I have just been surprised. This is our first foe who is actually strong and seems to work off of their own natural powers. They also seem to only want to take over the world, but every enemy wants to do that._

When the man snapped his fingers for the second time he heard dragging of feet and a zombie like Laura and Bryant started to walk over towards him. As Darien was watching Laura and Bryant walk towards him, he felt a burning gaze on his back and the burning that he had felt previously was growing warmer and harder to bare.

A thought came to Darien's mind, the thought told him to walk towards Laura and Bryant and let them kill him, it seemed simple. Without thinking Darien started to approach the two now standing forms in front of him.

The weird thing about it was that Darien's mind kept telling him that Laura and Bryant was dead. Feeling the burning in his body slowly start to ebb he felt something heavy being placed in him palm. As Darien listened to the voice in his mind everything stopped hurting, but when he tried to rebel against it the burning would only intensify.

As he was only inches away from Laura, he felt his arm being brought up against his will. Then he saw that Laura also had her arm up with something held inside her hand, Bryant was standing still and watching the scene with dull eyes.

By the time Darien was close enough to touch Laura, his body issued a warnig to him, trying to tell him something was wrong. Listening to his body he realized that he was being controlled by an enemy and he was also being told to kill someone that was already dead and that the dead was also trying to kill him.

" Man these days humans are such weak creatures, they are controlled so easily. By the way, when your two are done beating each other up, I want the winner over here, not that it matters anyway, I can just make more of you." The man said all of this while yawning and looking bored.

Darien's smiled, since Laura was dead he wouldn't hurt her by fighting her. But it he did fight her, he would most likely have less strength and he wouldn't be able to face the other men in the building. Darien still didn't want to harm the dead body of Laura, it seemed wrong and being controlled by some sick person from another planet was even worse.

The creature who looked human just wanted the entertainment of two people fighting against each other and he seemed to enjoy that they were fighting against their will.

As Darien walked closer to the stiff looking Laura, he raised his weapon and instead of using the weapon in his hands on her, he quickly spun around and launched it at the unsuspecting man across the small dark room with all of his strength.

A few seconds after the initial hit, the man uttered a sound of pain and shock. Before he could straighten himself out, Darien punched him across the jaw and gave him a good push backward. As the man careened into the wall, a sickening crack was heard and then silence.

After the man hit the wall, there was two loud echoing thuds in the room. The two dead bodies that were his friends dropped to the floor in a ungraceful pile. Walking over to the two bodies, Darien was surprised when they both just disappeared with a pop and didn't leave a trace of power or dust.

Still surprised about the other bodies, Darien went over to the enemies body. Looking up, Darien stared at the grotesque picture that the body had made. When Darien had attacked the man then pushed him, he crashed backwards into sharp protruding tools that now kept him pinned to the wall.

_Well all I can say is one down and a lot more to go._

Darien then proceeded to check the vital signs of the body, when he was assured that the man was dead he grabbed a rag that he prayed was clean and wiped his dirty bloody hands off. Discarding the old rag, Darien walked towards what he assumed was the door that he could possibly get out of.

Darien grabbed the old rusty handle of the door and twisted with all of his strength, the only thing he succeeded in doing was getting a handful of rust. But just as he assumed, it was locked tight. Walking over to the motionless body by the wall again, Darien felt around in some of the dead mans pockets, but not one pocket contained a set of keys to get out of the room.

Walking around the damp enclosed room, Darien looked around for the heavy hammer that he had previously held. Darien was sure that it could definitely break open the door, if he could find it.

After a few more minutes of searching the room again, Darien found what he needed in the corner of the room, it was where he had dropped it. Shrugging his shoulders and walking over to the door he pulled the hammer back and with all his strength and momentum, brought the hammer down on the handle of the door.

Wincing at the painfully loud noise that the hammer made, Darien hoped that he still went unnoticed in the building. Opening the heavy and rusty door, Darien stepped out of the dark room and into a very dim lit hallway.

* * *

**A/N- I have two options for the ending and I would like to know what you guys would like. A. Happy Ending or B. Sad Ending. Now you can leave a review or message saying what you want, considering that if you are reading this now you might want a say. I'm open for either one of the endings. There is only three or so chapters left to this story. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Thanks ;D**


	12. Chapter 12

After stepping out of the dark and grimy room and into the intersection of two split hallways, Darien was at a loss, he didn't know where to go. His temporary happiness was lost from defeating one enemy and then entering a maze of hallways.

Already frustrated and tired, Darien chose the right hand side of the two stale smelling hallways and as he wandered down the right hallway he passed countless closed doors. Darien cautiously opened a few doors that he passed by and he found that they all looked ransacked and abandoned.

The building seemed to have absolutely no sign of life anywhere, it was like the whole entire building was unoccupied. Thinking about the building, it looked like it was built underground because there was not one window around and as far as Darien could see there was only dirt walls and dirt floors. And as he walked down the dark halls, his shoes had gotten thoroughly damp since there was a small layer of water covering the ground everywhere he went.

Along with the miserable look of the building that he was in, there was also an unbearable smell that was a mix between damp earth and the sickly sweet smell of dirty, decaying bodies.

After walking for another few minutes, the back of his neck tingled with the feeling of being watched. As he looked around the narrow hallway that he was in, the feeling of being watched never went away and as far as he knew there was no cameras around. It didn't help that he could only see empty darkness a few feet behind him and in front of him. Continuing down the hallway, Darien brushed off the idea that someone was watching him.

Noticing and passing the same door for about the third time, Darien was positive that he was going in circles. It seemed like he would have to walk into one of the countless doors that littered the hallways and search for a way out since he kept meeting up at the same door after going both left and right. Darien thought that this was turning out to be just like a very bad horror movie.

Turning towards the nearest door, Darien walked in and just like the other rooms that he had looked inside of, it was pitch-black. Deciding to test his luck he stepped farther inside of the room and let his hand drag along the wall for a light switch. As he was walking he heard his shoes slap against the ground which meant that there was more water and judging from the wetness of his shoes and jeans, the water was deeper than before, he didn't want to think about how dirty the water was.

When his hand fell on something that felt solid, he grasped it and hoped for the best. But when the room didn't light up like he wanted it to, he pulled slightly harder on what he was holding, he accomplished nothing except for pulling whatever was on the wall off and then it fell into the water with a splash and a thud. Trying not to think about what he had been holding, he continued to let his other hand roam across the wall. When his hand fell on another object, he carefully applied pressure to it and the light on the ceiling unwillingly flickered on, bathing the room in a surprisingly bright light.

The first thing Darien did when the light turned on was look around the room, there wasn't anything too interesting to look at though. This room, unlike the others, actually had walls that were covered, but they still weren't in great condition. Looking down, Darien watched the water that was almost up to his calves and saw that it was scattered with dirt and debris. The most noticeable objects that were floating around in the water were some sort of bones, Darien wanted to think that they were animal bones or something else, just not human.

While watching the ground that held the floating trash and other garbage, he saw everything being pulled across the room by the water and then trying to go down some sort of drain. Curious to find out where everything was being drained into, he approached the side of the room where the water was swirling and being sucked down at a languid speed. Darien, realizing that there had to be a place for the water to drain into, got ready to plunge his hand in the water.

Looking distastefully at the spiraling murky water, Darien pulled up his shirt sleeve and placed his hand into the water where it was moving the most. Running his hand around in the water, he pulled on anything that he could, sometimes the object gave away and he didn't want to think about what it was. Finally, when he grabbed a rather heavy object, it came loose with a load cracking noise, it sounded like it hadn't been opened in a long time. As soon as Darien pulled the heavy piece of metal out of the water, he figured out that it was a grate for water so it could slowly drain.

Stepping back from the now frantic pace of the swirling water, he watched more and more of the rooms dirt and debris get pulled down into the hole he had uncovered. After most of the water was gone, the ground looked worse than it had, if that was possible. Stepping over to the hole in the floor where the grate used to be, Darien looked down and instead of seeing a sewer or a drainage system where he could possibly escape from, he saw what he thought was more rooms.

Tossing the grate across the room without any thought, Darien quickly went down the small wet steps that were slick with water. The steps led down into another part of the building that he was in. Once further in the ground, everything looked better, the floor was stone and there was more light and different decorations littering the walls, the room had a sort of rustic or lodge feel to it.

_This must be where they stay, or spend most of their time. And the upstairs must have just been a safety precaution or a façade, who knows. _

As Darien started walking he realized that he didn't know what to do again, he wasn't sure whether he should fight the people in the building or to find a way out and come back with backup, he was really lost. Before he made his mind up on what to do, Darien was suddenly saved from making a decision because he heard deep male voices and heavy shoe steps ricocheting off of the stone floors. Glancing down at his own shoes he noticed that the water that came down from the other room was draining in yet another drain.

This time Darien didn't follow the waters path as he quietly made his way down a stretch of hall that the men weren't walking towards. Darien wanted to at least look the place over before he approached anyone and he also hoped that know one noticed that the drain grate was missing.

As Darien went further into the building, the stone floor stopped and there was no more decorations anywhere, the lights also got more sparse. Not paying attention as he was walking, Darien was surprised when there was yet another change of scenery. The rooms before had a creepy and unsettling feel, but now they had a dark and evil feel.

There were heavy looking cages or bars that had dark black paint on them. The walls had ominous looking tools, which were probably for torture. The only thing that comforted Darien was that the tools on the wall looked like they haven't been used in a while, either that or the people who owned them kept them clean or for decorations, but he doubted it. The room looked like it would function as a room for torture and a room to keep prisoners.

Before he turned around to leave, Darien saw a man, he wasn't as strong or impressive looking as the other men he had seen, in fact he looked haggard and dead. Darien watched the man to see what he was doing, but he didn't seem to notice Darien when he had walked in and he seemed to be transfixed with something that was on the floor.

Approaching the man, Darien got ready to grab him and most likely kill him. When he was a few feet away from the hunched over figure, Darien could hear the man talking to himself or to the rather large bloodstain on the floor that Darien just noticed. The mans cracked voice rang throughout the room as he repeated the same sentences over and over again.

" I have to clean, clean for them, they can't even clean up their messes. More prisoners should arrive soon, which means more bloodstains to clean up" With those phrases repeating in his head, Darien decided that the man was delusional and the he was probably put into that state by the men occupying the building. Then Darien quickly wrapped his fingers around the dirty neck of the man in front of him.

Instead of fighting against Darien's grip, the man went limp like he was waiting to die. The only thing that he said was, " They will be angry when they find me dead, someone else will have to clean up after them now."

" Stop!" Startled yet again by something, Darien whipped around quickly to find the source of the voice, which sounded feminine. Holding the limp, but still alive body of the sick looking man, Darien was faced with a pretty fierce looking woman. She had long black hair which was matted with what he thought was either blood or dirt, maybe both. She was also standing up in one of the black cells that he had first seen, she was probably on the floor when he came in and her tattered dark outfit blended in with the surroundings.

" Stop what? This man should be killed, he is cleaning up a blood stain that he probably made." As he said that, the woman walked forward in her cell and gripped the bars that were the closest to Darien and then she launched into an argument, though she wasn't yelling or angry.

" You shouldn't kill anyone around here, they are all human, or they used to be. We have to look out for each other or we will never make it out of here alive. So I'm taking a wild guess, but you should already know that the people other than us in this room…"

She stopped talking for a moment and pointed a finger at the dark corner of the room which held another door. "And that room are not human. You see, that man in your arms right now, well he was, or still is, my cousin. He was given the blood of one of the men that own this place." She lifted her dirt covered arms up and in a wide arch, gestured around the room with her hands.

Darien couldn't lie to himself, he was very grateful that he had found another human in this place and she also seemed to at least be remotely sane.

Setting the now knocked out or sleeping man to the ground gently, Darien asked the woman a few questions that she might be able to answer. " You said that they gave him their blood? I thought that they could just make copies of the same person, so why take one and give them their blood? Are they vampires or some type of creature like that? Though that does sound far fetched, but who knows?"

The woman laughed and ran a hand through her dirty hair saying, " No not vampires, but they are something else. From what I know, they can make copies of the same person, as many as they want. The only thing wrong with that is that they use their strength and energy creating and maintaining those clones, I guess it depends on which guy it is and what his strength is." She suddenly stopped talking and started to pace around in her medium sized cell.

"Giving humans their blood means we will turn into a zombie type creature and we will only do their bidding without having to use their energy and power."

She stopped talking and halted her movements, then she looked at Darien with an intense gaze. She seemed to stare at him for a few minutes, which made Darien feel uncomfortable, then she shrugged and started to walk around her cell again and continued talking.

" I can already see it on your face, you want to know, why don't they just give us their blood? Well they are working on that, they can't just slit open their wrist, from what I have seen, it is a long process Their blood is different, it is a complicated process for them to draw blood, or that is what I hear. And then there is the task of getting one of us to drink their blood and I don't know about you, but I wouldn't willingly drink anyone's blood. So do you see why they just don't give us their blood, right?"

Darien nodded his head in agreement, he trusted everything that she said because she seemed to have lasted a considerable amount of time in this dark and dirty prison. He also wondered how long it has been since she had seen daylight, but by the look of her pasty complexion, it had been awhile.

" Hm, it has been about two or so months since I have seen it, but I lose count easily." Darien looked at her, she seemed to be talking to herself out loud. He hoped she wasn't because he was counting on her to help him get out of here and he just didn't need to deal with a crazy woman right now.

"I'm not crazy, or at least not yet." She smirked slightly at him, waiting to see what his response would be.

It dawned on Darien what she was hinting at, she could read minds. Soon everything started to come together as to why certain people might have been captured and some were not.

" Yes Darien, nearly everyone here has a special gift, but not everyone, some people were just not lucky. As you now know, my gift is mind reading, though I can only read fairly strong thoughts, which is what most thoughts are."

Darien had so many questions to ask her and she seemed to have a lot of wisdom for her age and she didn't look old at all.

" Well thanks for that compliment, by the way, simply call me Meg. I know your name, if you haven't noticed already."

"Yeah." Darien said offhandedly.

" So, your not thinking anything particularly right now, but why don't I help you with that. We should get out of here and I mean now and quickly. They will be back soon and I happen to be the next person to have the great opportunity to drink their blood and become a mindless servant to them, oh joy." Darien knew what she meant, he went up to her cage and felt how strong the bars were. Just as he thought, they were impossibly strong.

"Darien, I sense that you are frustrated, let me help you. Why don't you walk over to my dear old cousin and get the key out of his pocket, I should have told you that before."

Darien did as she said and sure enough, it was there. He walked over to the keyhole in the cell that was holding Meg and put the key inside and turned it. An uncomfortably loud clicking noise was heard and the heavy door on the cell creaked open.

Basically running out of the cell, Meg went over to Darien and gave him a tight hug and said her thanks. " Thank you for saving me, I would have been toast if you wouldn't have come into this room and helped me. Could we do one more thing? We need to release everyone else and perhaps put my cousin somewhere, I don't know if he will ever get better now. We got captured by these men because we were walking towards our cars to go home after eating at a restaurant. The guys who brought us here are pretty brave to grab us when we were out in the open."

Agreeing with her, Darien thought about saving the people who were in the other room. He wanted to save them, but right now he just didn't have the means to accomplish a task like that. But he would rescue them when he had more weapons and backup, that would only happen if he found a way out of the building, which was practically an endless maze.

Knowing that Meg had read his thoughts already, he started walking forward to the door that he had came in through. He stopped once he noticed that Meg wasn't with him, she was dragging her cousin over to a cage and then she shut the door behind her. Just incase she didn't hear his thoughts, Darien decided to just tell her what he planned to do.

" Now we need to find a way out of here and not get caught because I think my luck of escaping everything might be running out. And we will come back for the others, I haven't forgotten about them."

" I figured that and there is about ten or so people in there, maybe more or less because I have been in that cage for quite some time."

As they proceeded down the tangle of halls and doors, they managed to evade being seen by anyone, but they weren't any closer than they were before to finding an exit.

"Maybe we should dig our way o…" Meg's joke was cut short when Darien clamped a hand over her mouth, silencing her. Jerking his neck to the left and with a finger to his mouth to signal her to be quiet, he started to walk briskly towards a door that had just started to close.

When they reached the door it had shut, but it didn't lock. Darien had heard people talking and he had also seen them walk towards a door together, Meg wasn't paying attention so she hadn't seen them. "Out" Meg finished the sentence she didn't get to finish when Darien silenced her, Darien only lifted an eyebrow at her antics.

" Should we wait a few minutes until we open the door? I don't know whether we will end up outside or in the middle of a meeting.

Meg responded with, "Yeah, we should wait a few minutes, but you have to admit that waltzing into a meeting that they are conducting would be pretty comical."

Darien responded halfheartedly to another one of her jokes, " It would be comical."

While they were waiting, Darien thought about his mission, the first one he was assigned. He was to look after his dead friends small family and he ended up failing them. Then he was transported to a weird building where he thought his enemies resided. Darien didn't know what was going to happen next and by the way things were going he wasn't too excited as to what was going to happen next.

Leaning against one of the driest dirt walls that he could find, Darien gazed down to the floor. When he saw nothing interesting he looked at his jeans and shoes, which were filthy. As he thought of his jeans, Darien got an idea that he didn't know if it would work or not.

Putting his hand in his pocket, he pulled out his forgotten cell phone that had full battery, but not one signal bar. Not caring about the signal he tried calling Serena, he desperately wanted to know if she was okay and if she was with everyone else.

Dialing her number he held his arm up and tried to get even a little signal, but nothing happened. Sighing Darien only had one more option, which he was going to try. He started typing a message to Serena and he could only wish that it arrived in a reasonable amount of time, but when he pushed the send button it seemed to take forever to load.

After a lengthy wait, the failed sign on his phone flashed, but it did say that if the phone found reception at anytime, it would send. So all in all, the message would never get to Serena and the others in time, he was just too far below ground to send anything to them.

Pocketing his phone he walked over to the door that both himself and Meg waited at and he pushed it open. On the other side of the door, bright light spilled onto Meg and Darien as they both hesitantly opened the door together. They were caught off guard and the light was so bright that they both shielded their eyes and felt temporary pain with their vision adjusting, but it was a futile attempt. They ended up being temporarily blinded because they had been underground with minimum light for a good amount of time.

As Darien stood beside Meg, he wondered if anyone could see them or if they were about to be attacked. The only thing that Darien could tell was that the horrible damp smell was gone and replaced with a scent that he couldn't place, though it was pleasant. The ground beneath his feet didn't seem like dirt or grass at all, maybe it was wood, that was the only thing that Darien could come up with at the moment.

" Well Darien, how does it feel? I mean, how does it feel to be blind, because right now I don't feel too good at all." Darien agreed with her.

As Darien's vision started to adjust, he could see some of the room that he was in. With awkward vision he realized that they were in a place that was much more than just a room and it was much more than what he would have expected based on what he had seen of the other rooms.

**With Serena**

--

After watching a movie, the girls sat around and talked. Their daily schedule was the same and very predictable. Most of the passing days were filled with eating, talking, watching movies and anything similar to that.

Serena had been missing Darien and she continually hoped that he would return home safely. She was comforted by her friends being there for her and telling her that everything will turn out right. Feeling discouraged at the moment because Darien wouldn't answer any of her calls, Serena kept her phone near her just incase Darien called again. She kept thinking back to a couple days ago when she had said she didn't want to talk to him, she wondered if he was angry at her for not talking to him, she was feeling very guilty.

Another thought crossed her mind, she thought about something happening to him and the family he was watching. The only reason Serena was worried about Darien was she had tried calling the house phone of the family a few times and they hadn't answered either, what she really wanted to do was go out to the house and look for herself if anything was going on.

She kept most of what she was feeling away from her friends, she didn't want them to hold her emotional baggage. Another part of her wanted to show everyone that she was strong and a little more grown up than what she used to be, so she held all of her feelings inside. She knew that if she did tell her friends about her fears they would end up saying things like, everything would be alright, but Serena knew better. She had the feeling that she was drifting away from her friends, she felt that she wasn't as close to them as before, but she still cared greatly for them.

Standing up Serena stretched and started to walk over to her friends to see what they were doing. Before she could reach them, the door bell rang and everyone looked towards the door. Shrugging her shoulders Serena said, "Don't worry guys, I'll get it."

While she was heading towards the door, she could feel everyone's eyes on her, she hoped that the only reason they were watching her was because she was going to answer the door. Before opening the door, Serena looked out of the window besides the door and saw that a older looking woman with a young boy were standing impatiently outside of the house. They seemed to be looking around nervously and in their hands they were clutching small suitcases stuffed with items that Serena thought were clothes.

Putting a friendly smile on her face, Serena opened the door.

" Hello, may I help you with anything?" Still smiling Serena watched the woman and the boy exchange uneasy glances and then the woman spoke.

" Yes, we really need to get inside, there is no time to talk outside the door, please hurry." The woman looked at her with such frightened eyes that Serena quickly stepped inside and motioned for them to follow her, they complied without any thought. Serena also watched the woman shut and lock the door with amazing swiftness.

The woman now seemed calm, but the boy's wide eyes still seemed scared. Serena was just really confused, was someone chasing these people? She didn't know, but she did want to help them.

" Now please tell me what is so urgent, is someone after both of you, should I call the police?" When Serena spoke police, the pair shook their heads vehemently.

Again the pair exchanged glances, like they had their own language and the woman replied in a shaky voice, " I don't know for sure if someone is chasing us, so I wouldn't advise calling the police, but I want to know one thing before I continue. Is your name Serena and is your husbands name Darien?"

Cold fear crept its way through Serena's heart, she felt frozen and she didn't seem to comprehend the woman's question.

In her head, Serena repeated a mantra._ Please let Darien be okay, please. _

Feeling like a fool, she quickly gathering herself together, Serena wanted to know about Darien before she broke down in tears. The first thing that she needed to know, was who these two people were " Who are you two?"

Hearing the woman audibly sigh, Serena wondered if they knew any information. " I really need to know if your Serena and if your husband is Darien before I say anything more."

Serena simply nodded her head saying, " Yes I' am Serena and Darien is my husband, now who are you two?"

The woman seemed content with what Serena said and then she visibly relaxed." Okay, my name is Katherine and this is Robert. We are the family that your husband Darien was looking after, I'm Laura's mother and Robert is her son. And we have some grave news to tell y…"

Serena basically jumped out of her seat as some of her fears were confirmed, Darien was fatally wounded or dead. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but is Darien at least alive?"

Katherine nervously wrung her hands together. " That's why I'm over here, we don't know what happened to Darien and Laura. The only one who knows the most about that right now is Robert, he witnessed most of what happened."

Serena didn't know what she felt, she felt hope that Darien could be alive, but then she felt sadness because he was missing and he could be dead.

" Robert, could you please tell me what happened in your own words? I really want to know what happened to my husband."

Serena had talked to the boy as nicely as she could and hoped that he would tell her anything that had happened.

Deciding that Robert and Katherine would probably feel better if they sat down, Serena guided them towards the nearest couch. She passed her friends sitting around a board game and made a hand motion that she hoped would keep them sitting down and encourage them to keep playing their game.

Once seated, Serena kept her gaze on Robert, he held the most information and Serena set out on a mission to know everything he knew.

" Robert, could you please tell me what happened to my husband and your mother?"

The boy looked at her like he wanted to be doing something else than relive what happened to his mother and Darien, but he surprised Serena when he cleared his throat and started speaking.

" My mommy and I went out to meet this guy, she said that he would help us get out of trouble and that's all she told me about him. Later when we walked outside in the middle of the night, she made sure Darien was asleep before we did anything. I was surprised when we actually met the man, it was my father!"

Serena stared at Katherine to see her reaction, she didn't react, she acted like she had heard this before. Serena had thought that Bryant was dead and not alive, so this came as a shock to her.

"I thought my father was dead and I was so shocked to see him that I ran up to him and hugged him. I knew something was wrong when he didn't return the hug, but he pushed me away, he never did that before."

Robert held Katherine close to him as he retold what happened, she gave him an encouraging smile so he would continue.

" My father started talking angrily to my mommy and I was scared for her, but I knew that I couldn't do anything if he did something to her. I couldn't recognize my father at all, my mommy told me that he had been alive even though we had a funeral for him, she said that he was in trouble. When my father started getting angry with her, she started pushing me so that I could run, I heard him say that he was going to kill me."

Turning again towards his grandmother, Robert brushed tears from his eyes as she gently patted his head.

" That's when I saw Darien, as I was running away I slowly started running to where Darien was sitting. When I reached him, he told me to run inside and get Grandma and then leave to the safe place that we had talked about, which was here. The last thing I saw was my mommy being smacked by my father, he had never done that before. And then Darien ran towards them, when he reached them there was a bright light and a few minutes later everyone was gone. I was so scared that I ran and got Grandma and we left to come here, I don't know if anyone is following us, I hope not."

When he finished speaking, Robert burst into tears and hugged his grandmother, Serena wanted to burst into tears also, but she knew now was not the time. As Katherine and Robert had a family bonding moment, Serena turned to look for her friends and as she had suspected, they heard the whole entire conversation.

Getting up, Serena told everyone that she was going to set up the other guest bedroom. As she was in the bedroom, she set the bed with new sheets and opened up the drapes. She now let herself think about Darien, she missed him so much already and the thought of him being dead made her sick to her stomach. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Serena felt a few tears roll down her face. She now resented the fact that she hadn't talked to Darien the other night, she wanted to turn back time, but she knew she couldn't.

After giving herself a few minutes to grieve about what could have happened to Darien, she walked back downstairs. She heard talking as she walked into the kitchen, Katherine and Robert had gotten acquainted with everyone while she was upstairs.

"I'm done setting up the other guest bedroom, so anytime you two want to go to sleep just tell me and I will take you upstairs."

Katherine and Robert looked thankfully at Serena. " Thank you, Serena. You have been more than kind to us. I will tell you some more information when I get up tomorrow, I think I need to go to sleep soon or I will literally fall over."

"Okay, why don't I take you upstairs now so you can go to bed."

Nodding, both Katherine and Robert followed her upstairs, once they were settled in the bedroom, Serena said goodnight to the tired pair and closed the door.

Once outside of the bedroom, Serena wanted to go to bed also, but knew that the others would probably stay up later. Before she could reach the stairs to go back down, Lita was in front of her.

"Hey, Serena. I thought I should tell you something. I don't want to be mean, but you look like your going to fall over with exhaustion, the girls and I think that maybe you should get some sleep."

"Yes, I really do need sleep, I feel like I'm going to fall over. Could you tell everyone that I will see them in the morning."

" I will do that, but one more thing before you go to sleep. We heard about Darien, everyone doesn't know what to say, I don't either. The only thing that I can say is hope for the best, we all are and we are with you no matter what."

Lita went over to Serena and hugged her, she then smiled and started walking back down the stairs.

As Lita disappeared Serena basically ran towards her room and she barely had enough energy to change and get into bed. Once she was in bed and dreaming, Serena's thoughts were plagued with Darien.

* * *

A/N- This chapter took soooo long to type for some reason. There will be about three more chapters, I figured everything out. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who read and reviewed, everything is appreciated. The next chapter will be out sooner than this one and this story will have a happy ending ;D


	13. Chapter 13

After spending most of the night tossing and turning and waking up from yet another nightmare, all Serena could think about was sleep, sleep that wouldn't be interrupted. After hours of sleepless boredom, she gave up on trying to go to sleep altogether. Sitting up she started to pull at the covers that were tangled around her body, she only paused to look at the clock, she felt her heart drop when she realized that she had about four more hours until she usually woke up.

Sighing, Serena fell back onto her pillow will a dull thud and put her hands behind her head, it was a horrible night to be up, it was very humid outside, making it miserable for Serena to try and fall asleep again. The storm blowing in didn't help her either, especially when the wind would make a lot of noise and startle her out of sleep. She also remembered that when she woke up from her nightmare she had stuck out her hand to Darien's side of the bed, hoping he was there, only to be reminded where he really was or where he wasn't.

As more time passed, Serena ended up staring at the ceiling and listening to her fan hum as it tried to circulate the warm air around the room. In the background Serena started to hear some sort of noise, it sounded like someone ran into something.

Feeling the back of her neck tingle with something close to fear she started to feel like someone was watching her, confused Serena looked around the room, not one person could get in, she always locked her bedroom door, plus her windows were tightly locked and shut, not to mention she was two stories from the ground. As she ignored the feeling of being watched she was getting increasingly anxious about the small noises that she heard outside of her bedroom door and the need to walk around and check everything grew to an uncomfortable nagging itch in the back of her mind.

Deciding to get up and check her room, Serena carefully got out of bed and quickly flicked the bedside lamp on. When the lights turned on all of the shadows disappeared and absolutely nothing in the room was different than before, everything was familiar and unmoved.

Rubbing her temples and slowly shaking her head as to dispel her thoughts, Serena walked over to her door and opened it. Nothing was out of place outside of her room either, shaking her head again she walked towards the bathroom and went in and she shivered when her feet touched the cold flooring that contrasted drastically with the humid night. Once she was done she headed back to her bedroom, she had some hope that she would be able to fall asleep now that she had splashed cold water on her face and reassured herself that nothing out of the ordinary was inside of her house.

As she was heading to the familiar path of her bedroom in the complete darkness, Serena still felt uneasiness grow in the pit of her stomach. Before she could linger some more on her thoughts she promptly crashed her toe into something hard and some sort of yelp was heard, she wasn't sure if it was hers or someone else's. Blinking and looking around the dark room she saw nothing because the darkness was as thick as a dark cloak and she didn't remember setting anything in the middle of her hallway that she could step on.

Feeling her pulse beat rapidly in her neck, fear started to take over, she tossed her arms out in front of her and felt for something. She expected to touch the wall or maybe even knock some antique to the floor, but she wasn't prepared to feel someone. Gasping, Serena backed away and screamed as loud as she could, in her panic she hit the front of a dresser and lost her balance.

As she fell she was aware that the other person that was beside her grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She felt their hands on her shoulders and felt the heat that radiated off of them. Struggling, she managed to say, " Get off of me, now! Help!" She was frantic for help, she didn't know who this was and she wanted them to get off of her. After screaming some more she considered transforming, but decided against it because she didn't know who was in front of her and they didn't seem that dangerous at the moment, she didn't want to hurt someone if she wasn't in danger.

But all thoughts of not hurting the person that was next to her vanished when they put a sharp object to her throat and the other hand wrapped around the back of her neck to hold her still. Serena knew with frightening clarity what type of object was biting into her neck, it was most likely a knife and the hand around her neck was tight, but not unbreakable.

Gathering a few calming breaths Serena went limp, the person behind her was surprised, she could tell. Out of the corner of her eye Serena saw someone else, she hoped that they would help her. The person behind her seemed really nervous, so she decided to act quickly before her neck was slit, she darted her once limp hands up and seized the hands of her attacker in a bruising grip and then with their momentum she threw them as far as she could since the weight of her attacker was pretty heavy, they might not have went far, but they still felt it.

Serena was about to scream again, but she was surprised to find that the lights had just been turned on and she was facing a frightened looking boy. Serena wondered if the lights had been on before and she hadn't noticed them, shrugging her shoulders she was facing Robert. Serena wasn't surprised with his actions because he was a stranger and she welcomed him in her home with open arms, but it did seem weird that he was attacking her.

Images flashed back to her, about her nightmare, she knew that this couldn't be the outcome of it, this seemed too easy. Feeling anger at Robert, Serena immediately shut her open mouth and looked away from the boy, she couldn't believe she was getting worked up over this. Looking over to the door she saw all of her friends and Robert's grandmother, she felt her face grow red and warm as she realized that she may have made a big deal out of nothing, but she was glad she hadn't transformed though, that would have been a mess.

Still she couldn't get the image of young Robert choking her and the cold bite of the knife against her neck that clearly had promised death by an inexperienced hand. The thought of a knife was confusing also, what if it was just her imagination, what if he had only grabbed onto her since he was scared and it was his nails that she felt, did he even have a knife on him, it didn't look like it. She also remembered the shadow that she had seen, but she didn't think about it because she wasn't even sure if Robert had actually did those things, right now it just didn't seem possible, his face looked so innocent, but there was also a glint of something else in his eyes.

Rubbing the back of her neck and looking shyly at the boy in front of her, Serena said her apology. " I didn't know it was you, sorry." Serena seemed to think for a moment and added, " But you should have at least said something when I was yelling."

This time the boy looked down and he just shyly nodded his head in agreement, but she still didn't like the look on his face. " I came out here because I needed to use the bathroom and I couldn't find it." The boy sounded like he was defending himself and Serena didn't know if he was lying or not.

Giving the boy her best reassuring smile, Serena pointed down the hallway. " That is where you can find the bathroom."

As the boy walked away from her, her smile dropped from her face as she turned towards her friends, Robert's grandmother had left when he walked away. " That was strange and the kid acts strange, I don't know why he just didn't say anything when he bumped into me." Tapping her finger to her chin, Serena thought about telling her friends what she really thought. "Hey, I have to tell you guys something, I swear that Robert was choking me and he had a knife to my neck." She felt foolish when she said this out loud, it sounded rushed and nervous. When she looked up her friends seemed to at least partially agree with her.

"I did see how the boy looked at you, do you think we should search him for anything like a knife?" Mina looked increasingly worried as she talked.

" Hm, I think we should wait, maybe we can find out more, I just want everyone to watch out, okay? Now I think we should all go to bed because I might have been imagining things" What Serena really wanted was information about Darien, she knew that he had more information than he let on, she didn't want to ruin her chances of finding out more information by saying that he attacked her when she wasn't even sure he did anything.

With a nod everyone went back into their bedrooms. Serena couldn't help but feel worried, she felt that she hadn't handled the situation correctly. She could remember being choked and then a knife, but then she didn't, she couldn't help but think that maybe the lack of sleep was finally getting to her after all. She hoped that she made the right decision because if she knew for sure that Robert had a knife and that he had choked her he would have been out of the house already.

Sighing at the oncoming day ahead of her, she made her way downstairs to make herself a snack. Once the refrigerator was opened she grabbed everything and anything that looked good to her. When she was younger she used to do this all of the time, she would eat when she was emotional because that's what would make her feel better, now it was no different even though she hadn't indulged on her emotional eating in a while, it felt good. After a long while of sitting in front of the refrigerator she had stuffed her face until she was sick, literally.

Gingerly getting to her feet she stood and looked around, everything was silent, she enjoyed it. After her little binge she felt emotionally better than ever, this is what she needed. Putting a satisfied smile on her face, she forgot all of her fears and what ifs, she put everything behind her for the moment.

Stopping at the downstairs bathroom so she wouldn't wake anyone up, she walked into the large tiled bathroom and looked at herself, really looked at herself. She hadn't changed much in the passing years, in fact she looked the same if not for her face, it looked more mature and her blue eyes held a little more knowledge of the world than before. Holding one piece of her long blond hair, she smiled, her hair was something that never changed. She smiled again and shut her eyes as she felt soothing fingers running through her hair, only to have her eyes open three seconds later. Looking into the mirror again she didn't see someone who was content, she saw someone who had large frightened eyes and a mouth opened in shocked surprise.

The hands that were running through her hair soothingly had stopped and then they had turned cruel. Her scream turned into a light gasp when the man behind her put a hand over her mouth. Serena knew it was a man because of his reflection in the mirror, he was right behind her. He was wearing some sort of full face black mask that concealed all of his facial features and made him look quite frightening and he had his hands tightly wrapped in her hair, making it near impossible to move her upper body.

Light muffled noises came from her mouth due to the mans large hand that covered half her face and her mouth. She suddenly went limp in her captors grasp, he wasn't surprised and she felt like her head was on fire because he kept such a tight grip on it.

Closing her eyes due to the pain and to collect her thoughts she slowly brought her leg back and with accuracy she slammed it into his groin. Instantly he dropped her, clearly not expecting her to fight back and kick so hard. Ripping free of his grip, Serena darted out of the bathroom and started to head up the stairs. Again she was stopped from running up the stairs because she had been grabbed around the waist.

She felt her waist being squeezed so hard that it made her gasp for breath. Again she struggled as she felt her ribs being slowly crushed, thrashing out she hit the man in the face with her elbow and repeated until her dropped her on her backside and then he softy swore at her.

Serena scrambled up and ran once more, her breathing coming in short bursts as she hurriedly turned a corner and slammed right into the man. This time Serena had the enough time to push herself away before she got caught. Her mind was a mess, she didn't know where to go and what to do, the only thing she wanted to do at the moment was stop and rest, but she knew that she would get caught if she did that.

In the mess of thoughts that was her mind, Serena was aware that this had happened before, way too many times. She could almost predict the outcome, almost. As she dashed around her own house trying to outrun a maniac she met face to face with him, or more like mask to face. She faked a left and bought herself some time to get to the front door, the door that in her nightmares she could never open in time.

Just as she predicted she started unlocking the set of intricate locks that she had placed for safety, it was sort of ironic how the same locks that provided her with confidence and safety could very well be the death of her. As she pulled the door open she was rewarded with a light breeze in her sweat drenched face and then in the next second she was facing a closed door.

With a sharp intake of breath Serena turned around and faced her pursuer, who still had their mask on. Her heart almost stopped when the man laughed at her, laughed! Serena was fed up with this, she twisted around in her captors grasp and stomped on his foot as she grabbed her transformation brooch that she always kept with her. Just as she had uttered the words that would transform her into Sailor Moon after years of hiatus, she was roughly grabbed again and her brooch was taken from her and thrown across the room where the bright pink light that had been coming out of it had stopped.

Serena was so frustrated she could almost cry, if she was told all of this would happen in one day she would laugh. Looking up at the man as he looked down on her, she watched as he let out an impatient sigh, like he had seen this all before. With all of her strength she punched him squarely in the jaw and without missing a beat he did the same to her. Serena had never been punched so hard in her life, she was so dizzy and lethargic. With her final burst of energy she yelled and struggled with every ounce of strength. "Help! Someone help me!" But the last part was muffled due to the hand on her mouth again.

Then without notice she was dropped to the ground and her knees made a sickening crack, though they weren't broken, just badly bruised. Serena dimly heard footsteps and yells, someone was fighting with her attacker and losing. She wanted to help them, but she didn't have the energy or the correct frame of mind to get up and help. Falling into darkness, Serena wondered if she would ever get up again.

**A Few Hours Later**

--

Groaning as she moved, Serena put a hand to her pounding head and then lightly touched her face. Pain crossed her features when she did, then everything came flooding back to her in a panicked frenzy. She remembered living her nightmare in real life, well at least she hoped that it was real life because she didn't think she could go through another nightmare that was as realistic as the one she had just went through.

Pulling herself off of the couch that she was on, she sat up and was almost immediately flooded with a torrent of pain. With shaking hands she straightened up even more, determined to get information out of someone.

Carefully standing up and stretching she felt a little bit better, but not much. Glancing over to her right she glimpsed a figure against the wall, who appeared to be tied up. Walking over to them she figured that this was her attacker. He had his mask off and his head was hanging down to his chest like he had been knocked out, and he probably was.

There was just something familiar about him, thought Serena. Bringing her hand up to his face she pushed his head back so that it was turned towards her. The site that she was greeted with wasn't pleasant and to say it was the shock of her life was an understatement. There, sitting on the floor, tied up and bruised was Darien! Serena didn't know what to do, either jump for joy or sit down and weep. Darien had attacked her? She couldn't believe it, he would never do that to her. She felt betrayed, she wanted everything to go back to the way it was one month ago.

Feeling quite used, Serena went up to Darien and slapped him and he actually stirred in his unconscious state, like he was going to wake up at anytime. Looking down again she saw her transformation brooch that had been thrown across the room, bending down she picked it up and then she pocketed it..

With her hands on her hips she glared down at Darien, she didn't know what to do, but what she wanted was for Darien to wake up and talk to her. Turning around so her back faced Darien, she was greeted with her four friends all wearing sympathetic faces. What Serena really wanted to do at the moment was run out of the house and cry because nothing seemed fair, but she didn't.

Serena looked up when Lita tried to get her attention. " I never knew this is how it would turn out, what do you think happened to him because he would have never done anything like this before?" Serena just looked at Lita and shook her head with a grimace on her face.

Thinking her words over carefully Serena asked everyone a question that had been on her mind since she woke up. " Do you know where Robert and his grandmother are? Did they hear any of this yet?" Serena watched as her friends exchanged glances, which was a sign that they didn't want to talk about that yet.

"Come on guys, I think that this is sort of my business and keeping it from me isn't right." Glaring at them she tapped her foot on the floor, waiting for anyone to speak. A nervous Amy ended up speaking.

" When we checked in on both of them, only his grandmother was left, we tracked Robert down and we found him walking about thirty minutes away from this house, he is currently right over there." Serena turned her head as Amy pointed across the room where a sleeping, tied up Robert was.

Serena's mouth was open, she seemed to want to say something, but couldn't get it out.

" So… he was escaping or leaving, did he say anything to you?" Amy shook her head. "No, he didn't, all he said was that he needed to get away from here and we ended up searching for him while you were sleeping and we found a knife on him, it was pretty dull though."

"Wow, I can't wait to talk to Robert when he gets up and I also can't wait for him to get up either." Serena had pointed a accusing finger at Darien. " So you guys weren't going to tell me everything that happened? If I hadn't have asked, you guys wouldn't have told me."

As she looked at everyone's faces to see what they were feeling, she saw mostly regret. "We just thought that maybe we would tell you everything later, but I guess that didn't work out." Raye said while patting Serena's shoulder lightly. Lifting her gaze from Raye, she heard a crash behind her, Serena was shocked to see Lita charging into Darien and knocking him to the floor where she promptly punched him in the face.

"Um, a little help here anyone, I can't hold him down any longer." Lita was panting with exhaustion at having to hold Darien down, when everyone started to come closer to him Serena saw that something was wrong with his face.

" Wait! Stop getting closer to him! Lita get off of him now!" Serena was frantic, something wasn't right, but she was relieved when Lita jumped off of him, she had noticed that something was wrong also.

Just as Lita joined her, Darien's face started to…well…it started to melt. The girls stood together watching as the man who they had presumed to be Darien, started to melt and form into another man. When his face was more than half melted off he started to look like another man with a different body and different eye and hair color than Darien. Once the transformation was complete the man looked nothing like Darien, he didn't sound like him either.

When the man was done 'melting' into a new person everyone in the room was silent and there was absolutely no movement.

" Who are you and why are you here?" In response to Lita's question the man just laughed at her, like she had just said the funniest thing in the world. " Are you stupid? I'm here to obviously take that girl right over there, you know the short blond one." He pointed to Serena and then he crossed his arms in front of himself, he looked like he was thinking. "Oh and I want that boy over there also, the one that's tied up in the corner. He didn't kill you like I wanted and you probably don't want him here anyway, so hand him over." His arrogant voice carried throughout the room as he demanded that the boy be handed to him.

Hearing knuckles crack Serena turned to see Lita, she was ready to fight. " So your not Darien, just what type of creature are you?"

"No, I thought you would have noticed that before, but I guess that's just the human brain for you." The five friends exchanged glances, they all had similar thoughts going across their minds, this was the enemy they were tracking.

Hesitantly Serena stepped forward to the creature in front of her. " Well, where is Darien?"

"I may have him, or maybe I don't. All I know is that I'm supposed to take you with me." And with that last statement he proceeded toward her and then lunged at her. She was surprised when he crumpled to his knees in front of her, he was now sporting a knife in his chest, it was not in his heart though.

She watched as he looked up with a gaze of murderous intent, it wasn't directed at her, it was directed at Robert who was behind her, he had thrown his dull knife that he had tried to kill her with.

" Boy, that wasn't very smart of you, now what did I tell you before? Do you remember what I said and what would happen to you if you didn't listen to me?" The boy shuddered when he said that, but didn't respond.

The man pulled the knife out of his chest with one quick pull and not one drop of blood spilled out of the wound, he then looked at everyone in the room, and to his surprise they looked different this time. They had all transformed after many years of not even thinking about it, the man was so engrossed in the boy that the bright multi colored lights of their transformations hadn't even caught his attention " Now is there anymore surprises for me?" He sounded like he was amused. " No?" He then started to advance towards Robert, like nothing had happened and that was his mistake, he took his eyes off of everyone in the room.

Before he could harm Robert, Sailor Mars had sent a small but strong blast of fire at the man, it made him yell out in pain when the fire touched his sensitive skin.

" Okay, you want to fight? This house is too small for fighting though, so lets go somewhere more interesting, shall we? Oh and Serena, isn't that your name?" She nodded to the man. " This might be your lucky day, because we might be able to see your lover." And with that last statement he grabbed the boy with lightening fast speed and with a motion of his hand a bright light swept through the room that touched all of the girls, making them fell lightheaded and dizzy.

Once the feeling vanished from everyone they found out that they were in a different room, or more accurately, a different building. With its dark and dirty appearance it looked like it was underground, plus the walls were dirt and the smell was almost unbearable.

" Where are we, does anyone know?" Serena's question was instantly answered. "You are in my underground…house…if that's what you call it." Snapping her gaze to the man she saw that he had threw Robert on the ground and was now standing in the middle of the huge dirt room.

"Everyone else should be here soon, so they can join us and then you all will be gone for good and I won't have to worry about anyone of you interfering with our plans. And just like every other 'evil' person out there, there is only one goal in mind, ruling the world, but in my case it would be ruling the whole universe. I'm not so bad, I won't kill many people, what is the point of ruling when you don't have any followers? My group and I just want power, plain and simple, that is the point of ruling over something."

Serena had to resist the urge to roll her eyes, this is the same type of enemies that they always deal with, but these people seem a bit more powerful.

**With Darien**

--

After adjusting to the light, Darien was awed at the room he was in. The rooms that he was in before didn't even compare to the room he was in now. This room had clear glass and some sort of metal as the flooring. But the most shocking aspect of the room was that it was completely submerged underwater. By the look of things, the building had been built underground and then it had been built underwater, but it had to be near the surface of the water since there was a lot of natural light.

Looking over at Meg he could tell that she was just as amazed as he was. Anyone would be after seeing the poorly built building on the other side of the doors.

" It looks like we have some escapees to deal with now, don't we?" Stealing a glace to the new voice, Darien could see a man that looked almost identical to the other one he had killed.

Darien watched as the man looked closer at him. " You came right to us, didn't you? We were given the order to bring you here and look, here you are!"

" No, I was brought here by another man, and he is dead by the way." The mans smirk faded as he heard the news.

" What did the guy look like, the one that you killed I mean?" By this point the man began to look nervous. Darien smiled inwardly.

" He actually looked a lot like you." With that the man looked panicked, but then it was replaced with a smirk."Oh, for a moment I thought that you killed someone else, but if he looked like me, chances are he is probably one of my distant cousins, something like that." The man walked closer to Meg. " I want to know why you are with her, she is supposed to be in her cell." Darien thought for a moment, he had just realized that this man wasn't too aggressive and he didn't seem overly smart.

" I decided that she would come with me, after all he said that I could keep her and I have decided that I would come over and join you on your side." Darien felt Meg nudge his side in annoyance, she had read his mind, but she didn't like his plan.

" Keep her? She was next in line to become one of our mindless servants, it is hard to believe that he would give her to you." After thinking some more, a sly smile spread across the mans face. " To make sure that your one of us and that this girl can go with you, I want to know who told you all of this."

Darien knew this guy wasn't as dumb as he looked, and now he was in trouble, he didn't know some guys name that was the leader of the operation. In fact, Darien didn't even think they used names at all. " Well, 'He' told me that, you know, the leader or boss that's running this operation."

The man actually seemed satisfied with Darien's answer. " Okay, only someone like us would know something like that, so I guess you are free to go." And with that the man left them standing in the middle of the magnificent glass hallway.

Darien stole a glance at Meg, she looked impressed at what Darien did. " I didn't know you were that smart. I thought we were dead when he asked that question, how did you know that they really don't have any type of name? The only reason that I know is because of mind reading. I wish you could have heard what that man was thinking when he asked you the question about their leader"

" No, I don't know anything, I just assumed because they rarely call anyone by name. I think I changed my mind, we are going to look around here and find prisoners, I also have a strong feeling that the way out is in this building and not the other one"

" That's just what I was thinking, but remember, we have to go back and save the other prisoners in the underground building." Darien nodded his head at Meg and then they proceeded to walk down the glass hall.

Once again they were faced with multiple doors, but this time everything was much better quality and very pleasant looking. Turning towards the right, there was a big door that looked out of place among the other, much smaller doors.

This time Darien followed Meg as she walked to the large double doors, he looked at her for an explanation.

" I hear a lot of suffering and many pained thoughts coming from that double door and they are definitely alone in there. From what I hear they are not all mentally stable, they might possibly be the first set of people to be captured"

Darien knew that she was right, he also wondered what type of treatment that these people had gone through to make them unstable.

Making sure everything was clear, Meg and Darien dashed to the large doors and carefully opened them. Once the doors were wide open, a horrible smell went through the air and hit Darien full force, it made him want to gag.

Almost immediately they were faced with rows and rows of miniature cells, with way too many people in each one and the smell just got worse as they walked further inside. The faces that Darien saw were scared, scarred, dirty and sick. Just being in the room made Darien feel dirty and depressed. He turned to Meg and he could tell that she was feeling everything too, only much worse. She looked like she wanted to reach out to the people and help every single one of them, and she would, when they were all safe and out of the building.

Straight ahead Darien saw two guards, they seemed to look like the human zombie that he had encountered when he first met Meg. " Meg, I think this time we don't have a choice, we have to kill those people who are straight ahead." Darien was just waiting for her to disagree, but was surprised when she said the opposite. " Okay, they are too lost to be helped, their sanity is all gone."

" I will take the one on the left and you take the one on the right." They both headed to the men that they needed to kill, they were really doing them a favor in the long run, because the men didn't have their mind and couldn't think on their freewill.

Walking up to the old guard, Darien waited for the man to move, when he didn't Darien took his hand and hit the back of the mans neck, effectively killing him, the man probably felt no pain. After little wait, Darien was joined with Meg and she had keys jingling in her hand. They both walked toward a cell and carefully unlocked it, waiting to see what would happen. The people in the cell looked sick and feeble, they didn't want to move.

Leaving the cell open they stepped to the other cages, but only a few would walk out and even they weren't in the right frame of mind. Once they were finished with all of the cells, Darien and Meg had about half of the rooms occupants following them. Not one word was said as they all filed out of the room and into the great expanse of the hall.

Once in the glass hall, everyone of the people that was in the cells covered their eyes, to them the bright light was painful. Once everyone was ready to walk, they started down a hall that Darien and Meg hadn't been in. Every once and a while they would encounter a guard and Darien would have to kill him, while the silent crowd that followed him shrank with fear.

Darien had acquired a key card and various sets of keys from fallen guards, but the problem was that they didn't know where to use them. Finally after wandering again for another ten minutes a small guard started to walk across the hall and again the large crowd behind him would move away with fear. This time, Darien threatened the small guard, he wanted to know where the exit was and the guy seemed new, so there was a good chance that he was telling the truth when he said that the exit was two halls back and to the right at the eighth door.

He did feel some regret when he broke his promise to the guy and killed him anyway, but it wasn't like he was a good guy. So Darien turned the group around and they backtracked, occasionally passing one of the guards he had killed.

When they were at the door that the guard had directed them to, everyone stood still, they were waiting for someone to do something. "I will open it, so stand back." When everyone was further away from the door, Darien opened it and the room contained six elevators.

Deeming it was safe to go inside, he motioned for everyone to follow him. " I'm going to take elevator number one up to the top floor and see what is there." Darien didn't bother to give them any directions if he never came back, he was hoping he wouldn't end up in a situation where he should have given them directions.

Getting into the elevator was easy and the ride to the top was fast. As the doors opened he saw more natural light and a set of clear glass door, which lead to what looked like the outdoors.

Walking back into the sleek elevator, Darien pushed the button that would take him back to Meg and the others. Stepping out of the elevator and back underground was quite disheartening even though with another push of a button, he could be outside again. " Good news, if you push the top button on the elevator, it will take you outside." Darien expected to hear shouts and yells of triumph, but he heard nothing that suggested they were happy or excited. Again he wondered what happened to these people to make them act like this.

" Meg, I think you should take this group of people up and outside, hopefully a phone will get reception now." She nodded, but then looked at him again. " What about you?"

"I'm going to get the people that are in the building made of dirt, the place that I met you, so you should wait outside for the next group."

Meg had blushed when she realized she had almost forgotten about the other prisoners. " Will you come up with the other group?" Darien looked away, she didn't know that he had some sort of unfinished business, if you could even call it that. " Yeah, I will be up shortly after, but don't wait long, I might not come back, so why don't you just leave right away when you get the other group." She seemed to understand what he was trying to really say, he had forgotten that she could read his mind. " Fine, I will leave, but make sure you are careful and get everyone out of here." With a nod, he hugger her and left her to find the other prisoners, he wished that they would be in better shape than the other people were.

* * *

A/N-Wow, another chapter that took me really long to finish, I also kept on editing it. There is only one or two chapters left, I might combine them both because they are looking a bit small, so there might be one chapter left, who knows. Thanks to the people who read and reviewed, it's appreciated. And the next chapter will be here in two weeks or so.


	14. Chapter 14

Shutting the doors behind him with a light click, Darien started towards the room where he'd first met Meg. After a few minutes he was at the end of the hallway, but he slowed down when he sensed someone behind him, their footsteps were slightly clumsy, if he hadn't been paying attention he would have never noticed the soft footsteps that were slightly out of step with his.

Slowly, Darien reached into his pocket and quickly pulled out a knife that he had taken from a guard. _If the person following me was good, then they wouldn't be sneaking around behind me. _

Grasping the knife tightly in his palm and careful not to cut himself, Darien concentrated on the footsteps behind him and prepared to throw the knife.

And without warning he swiftly brought the sharp blade down with all of the force he could gather, throwing it at the figure behind him.

A second later Darien heard the person let out a surprised and pain filled gasp as the knife made contact with skin, but Darien didn't turn around until he heard the figure drop to the floor.

Looking behind him, Darien watched in a daze as the man held his bleeding neck and withered around on the dirty floor, as moments passed, the man was motionless, dead. Stepping towards the man, Darien was relieved to find out that it had been a guard following him.

Cautiously, Darien knelt down on the dirt floor and carefully placed his hand in the guard's pants pocket, he was looking for anything that would be useful. As his hand touched cold metal, he pocketed the guard's keys and other identification so he can continue to where the prisoners were being held.

Walking a little further, Darien found that the next door was locked. _That's probably why so many guards are out walking the hallways. They have noticed that something is not right; they wouldn't want their prisoners escaping_.

Pulling the guards heavy keys out of his pocket, he gave them one look and sighed, it was going to take him awhile to get inside of the room.

After painstakingly going through about twenty keys, he finally found the right one. Pushing open the heavy door, it made a high pitched groaning noise and opened slowly.

Inside of the room, nothing had changed. The older man was still on the floor and he was alive, but unconscious.

Walking past the cells, he came to the other door that Meg had pointed out previously. This time the door wasn't locked and Darien just walked inside of the room. It was dark, except for the light coming through the door that he had opened.

Hearing nothing inside of the room unnerved him a little, and he wondered if he should continue. Scanning the dark room he looked for any movement and he was pleased to find what looked like human bodies shifting and moving around slightly.

Deciding the room was safe, he turned on the light. As soon as the room was bathed in artificial light, a groaning was heard, but it wasn't from the door, it was from the people inside.

The occupants of the room were all covering their eyes and moaning in pain, meaning that everyone in the room hadn't seen light in quite a long time.

The room wasn't much better than the previous room, though this one seemed to contain people who had been in the building longer, and the smell was rancid.

Resisting the urge to cover his nose, he looked around the room. There were rows and rows of cells with a multitude of people inside, most of them looking haggard and sick.

All of the space was taken up by overcrowded cells, leaving a narrow path for a guard or someone to walk past the multitude of cells.

Darien also noticed that almost everyone's eyes followed him as he moved around the room. Everything was silent and he could only hear his footsteps as he debated which side of the room he would open the first cell. He hoped he wouldn't cause some sort of a riot or argument.

"I'm going to get all of you out of here." Darien tried to sound and look encouraging as he waited for a response, but got none.

He thought his words would be comforting, but thought differently when he heard some snickers and laughter. When he still got no verbal answer he decided to try and talk to them again. "Does anyone want to get out of here?" Only a few heads turned in his direction. He could tell that almost everyone had lost hope a long time ago.

The occupants either thought that this is a trick or that it is impossible to get them out, but Darien knew it wasn't. "I'm going to start at this row of cells first, and then when I'm finished I want all of you to wait and follow me. Okay?" A few mumbles were heard and then nothing.

"Do you really think you can get all of us out of here and then put us out on our own again? Most of us in here are presumed dead and we probably lost our jobs a long time ago, there is no hope left anymore." Darien was surprised someone had spoke up. It was an older man and he sat in a cell with what looked like his family. _Shouldn't he be optimistic, especially if his family is right next to him?_

He really didn't know what to say to the older man, so he ignored him. Darien had no clue what these people had gone through in the past couple of months, so he tried to say as little as possible to everyone.

He was also starting to get suspicious about how much murder and kidnappings were actually on the news, there were far more than what Darien had first thought. Most of the prisoners will have mental scars and even physical scars. It will take a long time for everyone to heal, but he knew that they all would get help.

"I'm going to get all of you out of here, just like I got the other group of prisoners out. I have someone waiting for all of you above ground. After that, the police will be involved and everyone will receive the help that they need." This time Darien got no answer, only more skeptical stares.

Reaching the first cell, Darien saw the occupants had a blank stare that seemed to bore holes into his skull, he wondered what they were thinking.

Once the door was open, a few people hesitantly stepped out and then they stopped. He watched as they looked at one another for support and courage.

Giving them time to adjust to the change, he went on to the next cell. The reaction was roughly the same as the last cell, so he continued on to the next. But as he was halfway through with opening the cell doors, the people started to get anxious.

Shouts were heard and then angry yelling, "Hey, what about us, don't leave us in here." A man in his early thirties shouted to Darien. "I will get to everyone, don't worry." He said absentmindedly.

Once the last cell was opened, Darien walked to the door that he entered through and made a hand motion indicating that they should stop talking and listen to him. "We are going to file through this door, I want everyone to follow me and I would also like everyone to remain silent. If a guard comes at us, I will take care of him, I want no panicking. All of you will get out of here safely." Without waiting for a reply, he walked through the doors and out into the hall.

Without looking behind him, he knew that everyone was following his directions, which made him feel more relaxed and confident about the situation he is in.

As he turned a corner, Darien felt a light tap on his right shoulder. Still walking he looked behind him and was surprised to see Laura looking at him expectantly. "You're alive?" He felt stupid after he said that out loud.

Rubbing the back of his head in embarrassed, he had already figured that she and Bryant were still alive, due to the fact that there are so many survivors. "Yeah, I'm alive. But Bryant is just barely." He detected a hint of sadness in her voice.

That's when Darien realized Bryant wasn't around, "Where is he if he isn't with you?" Laura sighed. "He is right behind me." She turned around and pointed to a man that could have been a walking corpse.

Darien stared at Bryant for a moment, clearly not believing that that could be him. "What happened? How long has he been here?" She seemed to think on what he said before she replied. "Hm, he has been here for maybe three or so months. He has just been withering away. I don't even think he recognizes me." She was looking desperately at Darien when she said that.

"Why don't you talk to him?" Laura was now twisting her hands nervously. "I already talked to him. He recognized me, but he is just talking nonsense, that's what scares me." Darien nodded his head in understanding.

"Why didn't I see you when I was opening up the cells?" He was still walking forward and they were getting closer to the building that was underwater. "I was in a very crowded cell and I was in the back by the wall, so you wouldn't have seen or heard me." Darien just nodded his head, most of his attention was on the hallway.

They walked in silence until they reached the double doors that would lead them one step closer toward freedom.

"Okay, I want everyone to know that this is going to be a very bright room, so watch your eyes. This next section of the building must make up for the lack of light in this one." His humor went unnoticed to the group of people behind him, they just stared blankly. "Just watch where you're walking." And with that, he opened the doors and stood in the middle of the bright room.

When everyone was inside the room, Darien heard their protests against the light and saw that they wouldn't be walking anytime soon.

Five minutes past and everyone had adjusted to the bright light. Most of the group was staring fixatedly at the room they were in, their mouths were hanging open. _I_ _must have looked like that too_. Darien stifled a laugh as he motioned for everyone to follow him.

Rounding a corner, he immediately saw a figure dressed in dark clothes and standing a few feet away from the elevators. With a sigh of annoyance, Darien picked up his pace and took out another knife from his pants pocket.

Aiming it at the figure's back he flung the knife, hoping to his a vital spot on the person's neck. This time Darien wasn't so lucky with his aim. The figure had turned around to reveal a broad shouldered man and in his hand was the knife that Darien had thrown.

With a laugh the man threw the knife into the crowd of people behind Darien. Darien, who had already expected this, grabbed the weapon before it could hit someone. By this time, the small crowd of people behind him started to get anxious and jumpy. Darien could feel their nervous energy and panic at the new situation.

After Darien pocketed the knife, he stalked towards the still laughing man. Darien intended to get rid of the man quickly so he wouldn't cause more panic. "You might not want to try and kill everyone you meet…they might not be as experienced as I' am." Darien cocked his head to the side, confused. He wondered why the man would tell him anything, especially that.

Shrugging his shoulders he continued towards the man, but before Darien could reach him, he disappeared, leaving no trace of himself behind, except his laughter that was still lingering in the hallway. _At any moment they could bring backup to take us out, they know that we are here, but why aren't they stopping us yet? And why did he say all of those weird things about not killing people in the hallway? _

Trying to act normal and calm, he didn't want everyone asking questions, especially because he wasn't sure if he had the answers.

Darien went down the last hallway where they would turn and go into the room with the six elevators. About to open the door, Darien spotted another figure down the hall. As he looked closer he saw that it was a small and short person, maybe a child, but the facial features were undistinguishable from his distance.

Turning his back on the figure, he faced everyone behind him. "I need everyone to file inside of this room, quickly." As everyone filed inside, there was pushing and shoving and more and more talking.

"I really need everyone to calmly walk inside of an elevator. I want about ten or so people in each one. Everyone will get to leave, so don't rush." As he finished speaking, he waited to see what the people would do, would they listen to him or not?

When every elevator door opened, Darien watched as everyone disregarded his directions. There was more pushing and shoving, shouting and yelling. The light chatter that had surrounded everyone before was now filled with hate, anger and yelling.

The six elevators were so crowded that the doors would barely shut; some people were even pushed out. But when the elevators finally shut and the talking and rushing was gone, Darien looked around the room and noticed a few people were left behind. He also noticed that Laura was left and made a motion with his hand to show that he wanted her to stay where she is.

Leaving the room, he was met with a body crashing into his. Darien lost his balance, but was able to stay standing, the other person wasn't that lucky.

The figure went crashing to the ground with a surprised yell, glancing down he noticed that the small figure sprawled on the ground looked and sounded familiar. As the figure stood up he noticed that something was familiar with this person. "Robert? Are you Robert?"

Darien knew it was Robert, but something was different with him. The boy had a few bruises and it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Darien." He watched as the boy looked up at him in wonder or amazement. Robert just stared at him with his mouth slightly open, it looked like he was trying to form words, but couldn't.

"Why are you here?" Darien waited for Robert to answer, he never expected him to be here, he thought that he had gotten away and was at a relative's house.

"There is really no time to explain anything, your friends need help. They are looking for you, but they could use some help. You need to go to them quickly. I was wandering around this place for a long time before I found you. If they didn't move to another room, they should be in a dirt looking building, the room that they are in is huge." He regarded Robert skeptically before deciding to speak.

"Okay, I'm going to go to them. Your mother and father are in the room over there. You need to leave this place with them, everything will be taken care of."

Darien knew that Laura would be waiting for him, and for her to see Robert would probably lift her spirits. As Robert walked into the room before him, he heard a feminine gasp of surprise and footsteps. Then he heard Laura start crying and he watched her place a motherly kiss on Robert's cheek.

Turning his back on the happy pair, he pressed the elevator's open button. After a few minutes he watched as the elevator came back down with not one person on it.

Once he stepped inside, he held the door for Laura and Robert. As they walked in and the door shut, he saw that they were still happy to see each other.

As the elevator stopped it's ascend to the above ground level, it opened smoothly, revealing a small room with glass doors that lead to a dense forest with no visible civilization surrounding it.

"Laura can I talk to you for a few minutes before you leave?" Her response was almost immediate. "Sure and Robert why don't you walk to the group of people sitting outside, they will be there waiting for help to come." Laura watched as Robert nodded his head and headed towards the doors that would lead him outside.

Just as he was out of sight, Darien realized that he couldn't see Bryant anywhere. "Where is Bryant" Laura turned to him with a scowl on her face. "He went up on another elevator without me." Darien didn't know what to say.

"He probably didn't think that he did anything wrong, remember he needs some mental help. But when you get out of here, find some help for him and I think he will be back to normal in a few months."

Laura smiled at him. "Yeah, he should be back to normal soon, I hope. I will also keep you updated on his condition when we get out of this mess. During these past few months my opinions have changed and I have a different outlook on life. So, why don't we get going now, I can't wait to get home."

Darien looked at her and sighed. "Well that is good for you." He said genuinely. "But I have to go back into the building and help some more people. And you should get out of here with Robert and Bryant, Robert probably wants to tell you the entire reason he is here. And your cell phone should work outside."

Laura looked at him critically before saying, "Okay, but I want to know when you get out of this place. Thank you for your help." And with that she turned and left, not waiting for a response.

Back inside the building, Darien suddenly remembered that Serena needed his help. Quickening his pace, he jogged past countless doors and long stretches of hallway until he got back to the underground part of the building.

Every once and a while he stopped to catch his breath, and he strained his ears to hear anything that might give the location of Serena and the others away, but he heard nothing.

As he rounded a corner he heard a light murmuring, it was coming from a door that was three feet in front of him. Pressing his ear to the door, he heard the murmuring more clearly and it turned out that it was deep male voices.

Darien could only catch a few words that held no significance, but as the talking stopped, he heard footsteps walking towards the door he was behind.

Pushing himself away from the door, he darted back to the other hallway that was only a few feet away and pressed his back to the wall.

He heard the door open where he had been and the voices dropped to a whisper. This time he caught more of their conversation. "I want you to go get them, and bring them back here, okay?" The other man sounded annoyed at his job. "Fine, Fine."

Darien didn't have time to think about what they said because someone started to walk towards him. He knew that when the man turned the corner he would immediately see him and alert the others.

Looking back and forth he realized that he couldn't run and hide anywhere, so he stayed in his spot, waiting for the guy and hoping that he could take him down.

But before the man turned the corner he disappeared, just like the other guy had. Breathing a sigh of relief he heard more footsteps, but they were headed in the opposite direction of where he was standing.

Cautiously he peaked around the corner and watched as the two guys walked down the hall, talking quietly. Once the two men were almost out of sight, he started to follow them, wishing that they would lead him to Serena and the others since he didn't have any more ideas.

With Serena

* * *

Looking back and forth at the huge room they were in, Serena was itching to move around.

The man that had brought them here was standing at the opposite side of the room, he seemed to be guarding the door that is directly behind him.

He had said something about more people coming and helping him, but it had been ten minutes since he had said that.

Serena could tell that her friends were getting agitated at just standing around. Looking to her right, Serena watched as Lita or Sailor Jupiter, crossed her arms and tapped her foot in annoyance.

Before turning around again, Serena realized just how different everyone looked. It was weird to look at her friends, who she still envisioned to look like teenagers. Everyone almost looked like they were at some sort of adult Halloween party, since they were transformed.

As her mind wandered, she realized that someone was calling her name, the voice sounded panicked and frantic. But before she could react to it, she saw a figure rush at her and then knock her to the floor, her breath left her as the person landed on her.

Blinking, she looked around as everything happened in a fast blur. Right where she had been standing a powerful blast had landed, making a large indent in the dirt floor. Dirt and debris scattered the large room and when everything cleared, Serena tried to sit up, but she couldn't.

Looking down at her lap she saw Sailor Mars, who was also trying to get up. She had dirt across her clothes and she didn't look too happy.

She watched as Mars glared at her, knowing what was going to happen next. "You need to pay attention more often!" Mars yelled at her as she was still trying to get up. Mars was about to yell at her more, but she was cut off when another powerful blast of energy was sent sailing towards them at an alarming speed.

Picking themselves off of the floor, they ran across the room as the second blast of energy landed where they had been only moments before. Breathing heavily, Serena looked around the room, she was searching for her friends. Her breathing returned to normal when she saw that everyone was alright.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a figure darting across her peripheral vision. The figure was small and running through shadows, she realized that it had to be Robert. As he approached her she noticed that he was getting ready to speak. "I'm going to look for prisoners and maybe find Darien and my parents." She nodded her head at his rushed statement and watched as he quickly darted unnoticed past the man that was currently attacking her friends on the opposite side of the room.

Running towards them, she watched as the man was getting increasingly tired and beat-up, he looked like he would fall over any second.

Barely able to remain standing, a scream emitted from him as Sailor Mercury sent a blast of ice at him. The man landed on his knees from the impact and fell to the dirt floor, she couldn't tell if he was dead or if he had fainted.

"So what do we do now?" Serena looked at her friends, waiting to hear a response. "Maybe we should walk around and just look at everything?" Sailor Venus said with a shrug of her shoulders.

Agreeing, they started across the room to the only door, which was wide open. Once they were mere feet away from the door, it slammed shut with a resounding bang.

Two shadowy figures soon appeared in front of them, but before they could fully form, Sailor Mars sent a blaze of fire at them.

As the fire hit the targets, smoke and debris rose in the air. And as soon as it cleared there were two solid male figures standing side by side, the attack didn't seem to harm them.

But in response to the attack sent at them, one of the two men sent an attack hurdling at Sailor Mars. She moved out of the way in time, but her arm was grazed by the attack, it didn't cause too much damage, but the wound still looked painful.

As the two men stepped closer, they were already powering up for another attack and as one of the men released a powerful blast of energy, the second man walked towards the limp figure on the ground, the one that that the Sailor Senshi had taken down.

After the blast of power passed the group, and literally shook the whole building, they all watched as one of the men started to revive the one on the floor.

Serena watched in amazement as the man who seemed dead was revived right before everyone's eyes. _Wow, that man must be powerful to revive someone so quickly. Maybe we should target him first since he seems to be the leader and the most powerful._

Serena looked to her friends, about to convey the message, but was surprised to see everyone looking at her with faces of horror and surprise.

Blinking she looked forward and before she could react she was knocked into the wall behind her with enough force to bring a building down.

Pain raced through her back and neck as she slowly removed herself from the wall that now had a human sized dent in it, courtesy of the man in front of her.

Serena's eyes widened in shock as she realized the man was in front of her again, bracing herself for more pain she was frightened to realize that nothing happened.

Opening her closed eyes, she was even more shocked to find that the man was now only inches from her face.

Feeling white hot anger flow through her body as he smirked at her, she pushed him away from her with all the energy she had. It effectively got him far enough away from her as she shakily stood up from the wall she was knocked into.

Serena stood her ground as the man approached her, he only looked slightly angry at being pushed, but he still had an annoying smirk on his face.

"So, you're the leader of this group of…girls, right." Serena knew he was just playing with her, she just nodded her head at his question to avoid saying anything.

"Mhm, you're not that great of a leader then, you're doing nothing while your friends are fighting my little group. You even let your guard down enough to let me attack you, and it seems it will happen again."

Without another warning he rushed towards her, he was a blur in Serena's eyes. With difficulty she jumped out of the way and sent a swift kick to his shin, which caused him to pause. Serena barely saw the look of pain cross his features, but it was gone in an instant.

He looked angrily at Serena, but he also looked a little impressed.

"For a human female, you are strong; I'm surprised I let my guard down enough to let you attack me."

And he was gone, he reappeared with his fist raised and it was headed towards her head, she turned, but instead of getting the full blow she was clipped in the chin. It sent her teeth slamming together and her head slamming to the left. He was strong, for whatever he is.

Serena remembered one of the other men saying they weren't human, but they didn't seem related to past enemies. They really didn't give much, if anything away about themselves, only the basics. We're here to take over, blah blah, we will defeat you, blah blah blah, and we are so strong we can't be beat, blah.

Serena had to give the man, or thing, in front of her credit though, he was strong.

This time Serena rushed at the man, her fist ready and her face set in determination. She let her fist fly at the man's face, but he sidestepped and he sent another fist of his own, but she dodged it too.

The dodging continued and neither one got hit for a good five minutes, until Serena sent another kick to his shin. It made contact and he faltered, but instead of falling over, he only looked more determined as he gathered what looked like raw energy or power into his hand. Favoring his right leg, he continued towards Serena while still gathering more power.

With a heave of his arm, he sent the ball of power at Serena, she moved out of the way, but it followed her. She didn't realize she was hit until she felt her shoulder burning with pain. She wanted to drop to the floor, but she knew that if she did, she would definitely die.

This time she took her remaining energy and cast it at the enemy with her scepter. If it didn't get rid of him, she didn't know what would, and that worried her.

As she released her attack, he did get hit and it did slow him down, but he was still up and moving. By that time, Serena was on the dirt floor, clutching her wounded shoulder.

She spared a glance at her friends, who looked tired, but were doing pretty well and Serena felt relief because of that. But a quick kick to her ribs woke her up from her relief, she had forgotten about the enemy she was still fighting.

Looking up, Serena was greeted with a scowl from the man she had attacked. She was happy that her attack had done some kind of damage.

But without warning, he brought his foot down onto her leg this time, it made a sickening crack when it made contact and Serena was sure it was either broken or fractured.

He was about to kick her again, but she propelled herself forward and slashed at his already wounded right leg.

He grunted in pain and before he could recover, she kicked his shin again, but this time it was with her unhurt leg.

As he fell to the ground, only feet away from her, he managed to kick her in the collar bone with his fairly unscathed left leg.

Serena felt more pain race up her shoulder as her collar bone radiated heat and pain. Managing to lean on her elbows painfully, she looked towards the man she had knocked down, she must have broken his leg because he couldn't get up.

As Serena caught the man's eye, it seemed to gleam with dark intent. But before she could stop him, he yelled something at his men and they all stopped fighting.

"This is the end, I only have two of my men left, the rest were killed by your little group. It ends now, you and your friends are going to die."

And with that, the men shot a blast of power to the ceiling, causing the building to shake and groan while the ceiling started to fall and collapse.

"You're dead now."

By the time he said that, his two men were carrying him away, and he was gone.

As the building started to collapse, Serena was blocked off from her friends; she was mainly worried about them and not herself.

Holding onto the hope that everyone could survive this, Serena tried to stand up, but her shoulders, stomach and legs cried out with exertion and pain, only causing her to painfully collapse and curl into a ball as the building fell around her.

Her last thoughts were of her friends and Darien, hoping that she would see them again and that her friends would survive.

* * *

Serena knew she was still alive when she woke up with immense pain all over her body and a heavy weight pinning down her legs and arms.

Heaving a heavy sigh, she struggled to sit up, too scared to look around her, so she looked at the damage done to her. She couldn't see much though, everything was dark and she felt dirt and rock all around her.

She had never really felt claustrophobic before, but she was sure that it felt like what she was feeling now. She couldn't move or lift herself, either due to her injures or the rubble and debris, probably both.

She felt like screaming, and that's what she ended up doing. After a few seconds she gave up, her throat was too sore to say or scream anything else. Giving up after trying to claw her way out, she let herself slip into unconsciousness.

Hours, days, minutes later, Serena didn't know, all she could feel was someone grabbing her arms and lifting her up and out of the prison she had been in.

As she become more and more aware of her surroundings, she noticed that she recognized the voices around her. They were worried, but happy she was alive, and she also heard a voice that made her want to scream all over again, but with relief and happiness.

Opening her eyes she was greeted with the site of Darien, who she hadn't seen in what felt like forever. Grinning she wrapped her arms around him, only letting go when she realized her shoulder was blazing with pain and her body was still aching.

She didn't know what to say, so she let someone else talk.

"Serena, they got away, there is three of them left. We got rid of two, but the other two got away and the one you were fighting got away also."

Once Serena heard the grim statement, she wanted to cry with frustration, but she didn't, she knew she had to be strong, especially with Darien watching. Why hadn't Darien said anything though, Serena was getting worried.

"Um, is everyone okay? Was I the only one that you guys needed to find?"

"Yeah, everyone is okay. When the building started to collapse, you were on the other side of the room, so we had to look for you because you were buried in all of the dirt and rubble that fell."

Nodding her head, Serena looked around, everything was in more of a mess than before, and she couldn't even find the door that they had been trying to get out of in the first place.

"Are we going to go after them? Do you have any clue to where they might have gone?"

Everyone shook their head. "They sort of disappeared when they destroyed the building."

"Are we going to go home now, I mean there is nothing else to do, we don't know where the enemy went, so what do we do?"

A silence filled the room as everyone thought about what they needed to do.

"I think we should look around before we leave, and make sure there is nothing we missed."

That was Darien's idea and everyone seemed to agree with it. Gently standing up, Serena was pleased to find out that her leg was just sore and not broken, even though she had to limp, it was better than having a broken bone.

As they all cleared a path towards the door, they were slowed down by all of the injuries they had, but they still continued.

When they reached the hall there was various pieces of ceiling missing, but it looked better than the other room had looked.

While they searched all of the rooms they could, they found nothing, their enemies had left. Sighing with frustration they headed towards the elevators, and were surprised to find that they still worked.

The ride to ground level couldn't have taken longer, but once the doors were open, everyone was looking forward to be outside again, they were also happy to find that it was daylight too.

But as everyone stepped outside and into the fresh air, a powerful blast of energy was sent hurdling right at them and woke them up to the fact that their enemies are back and angry.

"Okay, I can't say that I'm not impressed. Though I thought something like this might happen, that's why I'm prepared."

Serena felt even sicker to her already hurt stomach when the man in front of them revealed about ten to fifteen people.

Serena didn't know who they are, but they looked sick and tired, not to mention scared. There was even a little girl that they had taken also.

"What do you want with them? They have nothing to do with this."

The man laughed at what Darien had said and Serena got the feeling that Darien at least recognized the people held hostage in front of them.

"Oh, these people, well they are here to make sure you don't kill my two men and me. I need you and everyone else with you to be dead. But it seems like the odds aren't in my favor today, so we have innocent lives that will die if you don't come with us. You don't want to cause them more pain and suffering than they have already went through, right?"

Serena looked over at Darien, he was seething with anger, Serena was sure Darien would launch himself at the man taunting the hostages and him.

Darien started towards the man, but as soon as the man grabbed a little girl from her mother and father, Darien stopped his pursuit.

"Now I want all of you to come with me, or I will hurt and kill this little girl." He roughly shook her to make her gasp with fear and shake in his arms.

After a pause everyone looked around for someone to do something.

"Fine, but let the girl go back to her parents, right now." Sailor Jupiter spoke up, her voice strong, trying to get the man to listen to her.

"Okay, okay, just come with me then."

And he let the little girl go, but not without patting her head lightly and pushing her to her parents.

Serena was already angry with the man for even talking to the girl in the first place, but when he shook her and patted her head, it was like Serena was seeing red.

Just as the girl went back to her parents, Serena was on the enemy before he could even turn his head.

She kicked and punched every part of his body that she could find and she didn't stop until she was thrown onto the ground and was kicked in the ribs for the second time.

Looking up, the man was furious, he went to grab the little girl again, but the group of hostages was being led away by two of her friends. Darien was also after the two men, along with Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus.

Serena was up and on her feet again, ready for another attack, and when the man started throwing punches, she was ready and dodging them.

But what she didn't notice was that the enemy was slowly leading her away from everyone and when she felt her foot hit a large rock she couldn't move or dodge his punch.

Serena was hit full on in the face with the enemy's fist, she was literally seeing spots in her vision as she felt her face already swelling and growing warm.

But even before she could move again, she was pushed down until her head hit the rock that she had tripped over, her head came down with a sickening crack and she felt blood start pouring from the wound that was just made.

Coming to her senses, she fought some more against the man, catching him in the face with her fist and kicking him in his miraculously healed leg.

The pain flaring through her body was almost unbearable and she never wanted to feel it again, she just wanted everything to be over.

He managed to catch her again in the face, with his fist. This time she fell and brought him down with her. She tried to hit him some more, but couldn't. She started to feel helpless as he wrapped his hands around her throat and started choking her.

She did the only thing she could think of, she headbutted him with every bit of strength she had left, hoping it would at least stun him.

It worked, but she had no strength left to lift him off of her, but she would be eternally grateful to Darien because he ripped the barely conscious body off of her and threw it to the ground and kicked it a few times to make sure he wouldn't get up.

Serena could feel a bruise blossoming on her forehead and a headache starting to come on, she wanted to get rid of the enemy and be done with it.

Staggering to her feet, she leaned on Darien as she faced the body on the ground that was trying to get up. She slowly gathered any strength she had left after the fight and purified the body in front of her.

Almost instantly the man let out a scream and disintegrated, only to blow away in the breeze.

A little bit later

* * *

As Serena or Sailor Moon finished purifying and getting rid of the enemies bodies, she felt a weight lift off of her shoulders.

Now there shouldn't be many more unknown mass murders, but only one thing bothered her. The mass murdering enemies hadn't died as gruesomely as what their victims must have felt and faced. They just got to disappear in a cloud of dust, while their victims most likely died slowly.

The only thing that comforted her was Darien and her friends, and the knowledge that the enemies would never be back.

The last few weeks had been very frustrating, hectic and stressful, but Serena felt that she learned a lot about herself and her close friends.

Serena was really glad that her wishes came true, that all of her friends and Darien would come out alive and well, if not a bit bruised.

The only thing left to do was send the hostages and prisoners safely back to where they came from and to make sure that they get the help they deserve.

Grabbing Darien, Serena wrapped her arms around him, careful not to aggravate any of her injuries, she just needed to be close to him after a few weeks of not seeing and barely hearing from him. And after a few moments of holding each other, they started down the slight hill to where everyone was waiting, including the hostages.

But the one thing Serena is looking forward to, is going home and getting some rest. Then she is excited for everything to fall back into the normal routine, the routine where enemies aren't in the picture.

* * *

A/N- Hi! Wow, it's been a long time since I updated. This last chapter was hard to write and I had some conflicts with my writing style, so I kept on editing it. I just knew I had to finish this before the New Year. I hope it was a good chapter and I hope it's a good ending to this fanfic. I will post another fanfic soon, so if you want to check it out in the next few weeks please do so, if you guys haven't given up on me…haha. Well I want to give a big thank you to my reviewers, who are awesome, and especially a big thank you to Unknown reader, who has given me great reviews since the first chapter. Thanks again everyone, reviews are always appreciated!


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